


Quarantine

by MissPippinator



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Friends to Lovers, My First Fanfic, Never done tags before, Slow Burn, send help
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:08:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 32,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23375164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissPippinator/pseuds/MissPippinator
Summary: Someone got me thinking about the Doctor and Yaz ending up being locked down together. Then other people on here beat me to it and wrote it better. Some people encouraged me to post anyway (you know who you are, laminator fam!)What would they get up to and how would the Doctor cope with being trapped in Yaz's flat for an extended period of time? Featuring our hopeless pair getting flustered a lot, a score board, hands, a rogue laminator and the world premier of Flensday. Who could ask for anything more?Attempting to post a chapter a day.Chapter 11 is the one responsible for the rating - everything else is considerably more tame, feel free to skip that chapter if you want to keep things a bit more fluffy!!
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Comments: 183
Kudos: 230





	1. Unexpected

**Author's Note:**

> We join our friends a few days before the official "lockdown that they're not calling a lockdown" began in the UK.

It wasn’t until after the Doctor had said goodbye to the fam and shut the door to the TARDIS wistfully behind them that she noticed it lying on the floor next to the console. Yaz’s wallet. She picked it up thoughtfully, aware that Yaz had just been planning on a quiet couple of days at home with her family and wondered if she would actually notice she didn’t have it, let alone need to use it. She bit her bottom lip, knowing that humans were peculiarly attached to these things, and knowing that it would also give her the excuse for just a brief additional moment with at least one of the fam before she was left to her own devices for 48 hours. With that in mind, it only took a moment for a decision to be made, and she strode out of the TARDIS, wallet held in front of her like a talisman. 

As she headed up to Yaz’s flat, something seemed different to normal, registering itself in a corner of her mind, but it was obscured by her pride in her mission, returning this human trinket. She bounced up the steps, two at a time, regretting this slightly when she reached the third floor, breathing heavily. The strange difference was still nagging in the back of her head, trying to get her attention, but she ignored it and marched along to rap on the relevant door.

Bouncing lightly on her toes, the Doctor tried to remember the appropriate greeting for Yaz’s family members, should any of them open the door. Was it that she WAS meant to hug them, or NOT meant to hug them? It was one or the other, she knew, but which one? Human customs could be so confusing, especially as they were constantly changing. She had just about made up her mind to bow instead, when the door opened, and to the Doctor’s relief it was Yaz herself standing there. She brandished the wallet with a proud smile. 

“You forgot this!” 

“It must have fallen out of my bag, thank you Doctor,” Yaz responded and stood back to let the Doctor in. As she stepped through the door, the Doctor turned to look back outside – what WAS it that was different? No matter. Yaz shut the door behind her and led her towards the kitchen area. 

“Mum and Dad have gone away for the week. Whitby again,” she explained as the Doctor followed her through. “Do you want a cup of tea?” 

“Yes, yes I do,” the Doctor beamed at the opportunity for some bonus time with her friend before two days of loneliness without any of them.

“You’d better go and wash your hands, though, seeing as you’ve been outside,” Yaz added, filling the kettle with water.

“What? My hands are perfectly clean,” replied the Doctor in confusion. This wasn’t a normal request. “I haven’t even been working on the console today, so no oil smudges.” She held her hands up as if to prove their cleanliness. Yaz nodded in amusement, but pointed towards the table nearby. 

“It’s not that, look at the leaflet on the table. It had been posted through the letter box when I arrived back a few minutes ago.”

The Doctor picked up the leaflet, which had the words KEEPING PARK HILL SAFE FROM CORONAVIRUS in large capitals at the top. Underneath was a brief explanation of what the virus was, concerns about a pandemic and then instructions for hand washing and social distancing. The Doctor’s mouth formed a silent o shape. Yaz paused her tea preparations.

“Doctor? What is it?”

“March 2020. I remember now.” 

“Remember what?”

“The pandemic. That’s what my brain was trying to tell me outside – it’s too quiet. No one out and about. Everyone’s staying in. It’s… erm… going to get worse before it gets better.” The Doctor had become slightly more agitated than usual, pacing backwards and forwards.

“But it’ll be ok, right? I mean, like bird flu? That was all ok, wasn’t it?” Yaz watched as the Doctor headed to the sink and began washing her hands thoroughly. 

“This one takes off just a bit more than bird flu did. Did I ever tell you, I met the bird who started bird flu?” Yaz took heart in the fact that the Doctor was still able to wander off at a tangent in her chatter. But she also knew the Doctor was prone to making up outlandish stories to distract them when she wanted to, and this felt a little too much like that. She looked pointedly at the Doctor, who paused her pacing when she realised her tactic to distract Yaz hadn’t worked. The kettle switched itself off at just the right moment, and the Doctor smiled brightly. “Tea, then? Or we could, you know, head back to the box and see where we end up?” Yaz wasn’t taken in by the wide smile on the Doctor’s face. Her eyes were serious, despite the smile. 

“Doctor, Sonya will be back from staying with our aunt and uncle tonight and I promised her some quality sister-time. She’ll kill me if I ditch her and leave her alone when mum and dad are away.” As if on cue, Yaz’s phone rang, the screen showing it was Sonya. Yaz put it on speakerphone.

“Hi Sonya, are you heading home soon? The Doctor’s here, she…” Yaz began, but she was interrupted.

“Yaz, shut up and listen.” Yaz looked affronted at her sister’s abruptness and was about to give her a piece of her mind when Sonya continued. “Have you seen it on the news? They’ve locked down Park Hill, there’s been a bunch of cases there,”

“Sonya, what are you talking about? Cases of what?”

“Yaz! The virus! Where have you been? You’ve picked a right old time to come back! I’ve got to stay here, mum and dad are heading here as well because we can’t come home - the local news says no one can go in or out of Park Hill,” Sonya actually sounded panicked, so the Doctor spoke up.

“Hi Sonya, it’s the Doctor. Look, don’t worry, Yaz is not alone, she’s safe, and you’re safe too. Wash your hands regularly and stay away from other people as much as you can.” Yaz looked at the Doctor’s face as she spoke. It was beginning to sink in that things were a little more serious than she had anticipated, and anxiety began to rise. She knew not to worry Sonya any further, though.

“Son, it’s ok. I’ll be fine here, you’ll be fine there. I am sure this will all be over in a few days…” she paused as the Doctor frantically shook her head and waved her hands no. “Er… it’ll be over soon. Keep texting and phoning.”

“You sure you’ll be alright?” Sonya still sounded concerned, and Yaz was grateful that she was with relatives who would take care of her.

“I’ll be fine. I’ll text you later. Love you.”

“Love you, too.” Yaz ended the call just in time to hear voices over a loudspeaker from the outside. She and the Doctor hurried to the window and stared out. Outside, they saw a police van and several police officers, one of whom was speaking through the aforementioned loudspeaker. They glanced at each other, open-mouthed.

“Please stay inside your flats, this estate has been locked down. We must prevent the spread of the virus any further. You will get information posted through your letter box with details for what to do if you are ill, and how to organise for the delivery of essential items. Do not leave your flat under any circumstances.”

The Doctor and Yaz turned silently to look at one another, as various people in other flats began calling out of the windows to the police officer, who repeated calmly that all the pertinent information would soon be posted through letter boxes. 

“Doctor, I’ve changed my mind, let’s go to the TARDIS, I don’t want to stay here.” Yaz’s heart was pounding in her chest and she felt the edge of panic beginning to grip her. Her eyes were wide, and she moved towards the door, but the Doctor grabbed her arms and held them firmly, as if anchoring her.

“Yaz, you heard him, we can’t leave. You can’t put yourself at risk, and seeing as they have parked their van up next to the TARDIS, I don’t fancy our chances of getting to it anyway.”

“But it’s not safe here, Doctor, we have to go!” The Doctor kept her grip on Yaz’s arms, holding her still. 

“We’re quite safe inside. We’ll be fine, trust me.” Feeling the Doctor’s grip on her arms and looking into her eyes, steely and sure, Yaz felt her heart rate calm and the panic edged a little further away. She nodded and took a deep breath. When the Doctor thought Yaz was back in control of herself, she let go and pulled out her flip phone, calling Graham. 

“Doc! Where are you? It’s a right old state here at the moment. Any chance we could get back in the TARDIS and come back when this is all over?”

“Sorry, Graham, I’m a bit stuck – Park Hill has been locked down and Yaz and I are inside.”

“Blimey, are you both OK? What a time to come home!”

“We’re fine, but we can’t get to the TARDIS. I think we are just going to have to wait this out. Are you and Ryan safe?”

“Yeah, luckily I keep plenty of long life food in all the time, ‘cos I never know when we’re going to be back and Grace taught me to always be prepared. So we just sit this out, then? Nothing we can do to help?”

“Graham, I am afraid at your age…” 

“Oi!”

“…you have a higher risk of serious consequences if you get the virus, so the best thing you can do is stay away from other people. Ryan will be able to go out if he stays safe,”

“Yeah, he’s rubbing his hands in glee at that!” Yaz chuckled at Graham’s comment. If he wasn’t going to panic, she was sure she would be fine. Whilst the Doctor continued talking with him on the phone, she headed back to the kitchen to make the two mugs of tea, and by the time she brought them over to the Doctor, she’d put her phone away and was watching the police officers through the window. Taking one of the mugs, she smiled warmly at Yaz. 

“So,” the Doctor clapped her hands together. “Got any board games?”


	2. Passing Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well I managed to survive posting my first ever chapter, and people even read it- thank you! So here's chapter 2!

Several hours later, the promised information had been posted through the letter box and Yaz had exhausted all of the board games her family owned. The Doctor had thrown the Monopoly board off the table in a fit of impatience within five minutes of starting a game. Yaz had refused to continue playing Scrabble when her opponent kept trying to use words from obscure planets, like “zxwqzgkr”, saying that it really wasn’t fair (plus she wasn’t entirely sure she actually believed the Doctor that they were real words anyway). Carcassonne didn’t work when the Doctor kept trying to make four dimensional cities which Yaz claimed was cheating. She had thought they were onto a winner with snap, until it became clear she was playing against the most competitive person in the universe and had to ban the Doctor from ever playing it again. And neither of them felt like playing Pandemic. 

It was starting to feel to Yaz like she was babysitting a hyperactive toddler. Despite the Doctor’s earlier calmness about the situation, a few hours of being trapped within the confines of one flat seemed to have resulted in increasing restlessness until Yaz was sure the other woman was going to start literally bouncing off the walls. 

“You see, I sort of invented snap, many years ago, with one of my previous faces,” she was saying, though Yaz was only half listening, wondering how on earth they were going to survive for any length of time being trapped in the flat. She glanced at the clock and noted that it was nearly 7pm.

“Doctor, I’m getting a bit hungry. Shall we make a start on dinner?” Yaz interrupted the ramblings.

“Oh food, good idea. What have we got to play with?” Yaz was a little concerned about this choice of expression, but at least it had focused the Doctor’s attention on something else. Looking in the fridge, she was relieved to see her parents had done their usual trick of leaving Sonya with copious amounts of prepared meals to heat up, and which Sonya had, as usual, completely ignored in favour of take out. Alongside the plastic boxes of food from her parents, there was the remains of a pizza and a paper bag of leftover KFC. Yaz pulled out one of the boxes and stuck it in the microwave.

“I could make something, you know,” the Doctor offered. “I am a great cook. You should ask my friend Craig. He was well impressed.” Yaz again found that she wasn’t sure if she believed the Doctor or not. This often happened when she told them anecdotes of her experiences, and usually Yaz was content to chuckle along, but this time she was curious. And, well, they had time on their hands.

“Are they true? Your stories, I mean? You are always telling us these fantastical things. Did they really happen?”

The Doctor stopped opening all the cupboards to peer inside them and turned round to face Yaz. She pursed her lips for a moment, as if thinking. 

“Only, sometimes it seems like you’re just trying to distract us, like from something dangerous.” Yaz found her heart pounding again, though this time not from fear of the virus.

“Sometimes.” The Doctor replied carefully. 

“Sometimes they’re true? Or sometimes you’re distracting us?” In for a penny, in for a pound, thought Yaz.

“Both. I’ve lived a long time, I’ve done a lot of things that you would never believe. And sometimes it’s a great way to stop you all from getting too worried about a situation we are in.” 

“And sometimes it’s a great way to stop us from asking too much about you,” added Yaz, really afraid that this was pushing it too far. They had to survive together in this flat for goodness knows how long, and she did not want things to be awkward. But she was also curious about this mad woman in a box who had fallen into her life.

“Yes. Sometimes it is,” agreed the Doctor, looking straight into Yaz’s eyes. It felt to Yaz for just a moment as if the Doctor was looking directly into her soul, and try as she might, she could not tear her eyes away. And then the microwave pinged and they both had a reason to look away and change the subject. 

Fortunately, the food had been prepared by Najia rather than Hakim, and was delicious. The Doctor and Yaz ate hungrily, not having realised how long it had been since they had last consumed food. The Doctor regaled Yaz with a story about farting aliens, which Yaz countered with her own tale of farting Year 10 boys. It was whilst they were washing up, Yaz at the sink and the Doctor wielding a tea-towel, that Yaz suddenly started to laugh at the absurdity of the situation. She tried to supress the rising giggles at first, but it didn’t work and soon she found herself leaning against the counter, tears leaking from her eyes as the laughter took over. The Doctor looked on in bafflement, unsure how to react, and eventually settled on waiting until Yaz regained control of herself, wiping her eyes. She looked at her quizzically, one eyebrow raised, waiting for an explanation. 

“I’m sorry,” Yaz sighed, “It’s just, it all seemed very weird and domestic: you, in a flat, doing the washing up, and I don’t know, I just couldn’t help myself,” she felt rather silly now at how she had been overcome by laughter in front of her confused friend, but the Doctor smiled kindly.

“It isn’t quite my usual style,” she admitted. “The TARDIS normally clears everything up. I’m more comfortable getting up to my eyeballs in the engineering side of things.” Yaz nodded, having seen the Doctor immersed in the innards of the TARDIS console more times than she cared to remember. An image suddenly popped unbidden into her mind of the Doctor, coat discarded, sleeves rolled up, goggles on top of her head throwing her hair into disarray, a smudge of oil on her cheek… It made Yaz falter for some unknown reason, and she felt her cheeks warm as she looked at the Doctor drying off the final plate, coat similarly discarded and sleeves rolled up. She cleared her throat and pushed herself away from the sink. 

“I think we need a break from the board games,” she suggested, causing the Doctor to pull a scronched face. “How about a sofa movie?” She still needed some way to keep the Doctor distracted and not bouncing all over the place.

“I’m game,” the Doctor replied. “What do you suggest?” Yaz pulled off her shoes and flopped onto the sofa, grabbing the remote control and firing up Netflix. 

“I dunno, what do you feel like like?” 

“I fancy something that will make me laugh,” the Doctor cast her mind back to a few moments ago when Yaz had the giggles. The thought of seeing Yaz helpless with laughter again made her hearts flutter unexpectedly, and she shook her head slightly, turning her attention to the list of comedy films Yaz was scrolling through on the screen. “You can choose, I trust you,” she concluded and unlaced her boots, kicking them across the floor.

An hour later, they were both chuckling away to a silly but amusing film. They were curled up under blankets, sock-clad feet tucked up in the middle. Suddenly, at the appearance of a random actor, the Doctor grabbed Yaz’s leg unexpectedly. “I know him, I met him years ago!” She commented. Yaz tried to ignore the warm hand currently holding her ankle which was hard as it was oddly distracting.

“You did not!” She responded, trying to sound casual.

“No, really I did. He was hanging around with Tom Hanks at that restaurant and started to choke on a sprout. I had to perform the Heimlich manoeuvre or he would have succumbed to sprout-sphyxiation!” Yaz couldn’t hold in the laugh, whether the Doctor was telling the truth or not. The Doctor watched her reaction, feeling like she had won a little victory. They giggled their way through the rest of the film, laughing at the most inane of moments and for once Yaz did not fall asleep before the end. 

However, she made the mistake of switching to the news once the film had finished, and the sobering updates quickly put an end to the laughter. They both sat upright on the sofa, blankets discarded, as they watched the latest figures of people infected and those who had died. They saw the responses of countries around the world, shutting things down, telling people not to go out. They heard about health care services becoming overwhelmed and key workers unable to buy essentials because of all the panic buying. And before she knew it, a tear slipped down Yaz’s cheek. Literally hours ago, the fam and the Doctor had been together in the TARDIS, joking about their latest trip which had resulted in Ryan falling over in an extremely muddy puddle, and preparing for one of their regular visits home. Now that all felt very distant indeed, and the immediacy of the crisis on her own planet felt like a prison, trapping them into a danger from which they, and the rest of the inhabitants of earth, could not escape. The Doctor glanced over at Yaz and noticed her surreptitiously wipe the rogue tear away. Quietly, she shuffled over on the sofa and gently put an arm around her friend. 

“Remember, even though it may seem like it, the dark times never sustain. Humans will come out the other side of this.”

“I’ve seen films about this kind of disaster. Read books. Heard people debate about whether or not this kind of thing could ever really happen. But it all seemed so distant, never real. And now it is. Real, I mean. It’s here, right now, and we’re right in the middle of it.” Yaz kept staring at the TV screen as she spoke, watching scenes of empty streets and health care workers imploring people to stay at home. But then she turned to look at the Doctor, and a spark of hope was lit behind her eyes. “But I’m glad I’m not alone. I’m glad you’re here.” There was a moment where they just stared at each other, and then Yaz pushed herself to her feet, unsure what was causing the strange feelings tingling inside her. 

“I am sure mum and dad won’t mind you using their room, and you can borrow some of my pyjamas,” she said, feeing like she was speaking too loudly but not sure why. “Can you help me change the sheets?” The Doctor leapt to her feet in enthusiasm. 

“I am excellent at changing sheets, won a prize for it once, you know?” Yaz was given cause to doubt that claim when not long later the Doctor had disappeared inside the fresh duvet cover and was crashing about the bedroom like a very clumsy ghost. 

“Won a prize, you say?” she commented with a smile.

“Yes, but to be fair it wasn’t a king-sized duvet,” came the response from within the duvet cover, which was followed by a muffled yell as she stood on one corner and tripped herself over, falling in a heap of fabric and limbs.

“Find the corner of the duvet and hand it to me,” Yaz instructed, grasping the corner of the cover herself. Team work won the day and they managed to successfully finish changing the bed. The Doctor then trailed after Yaz like a puppy as they headed to her room for pyjamas. Yaz was about to pull the plain set she rarely wore out for the Doctor, when a hand reached into the drawer beside her and pulled out a pair covered with stars, her eyes wide.

“Yaz, these are ace! Can I borrow these ones?” Yaz couldn’t help the smile that crept across her face. These were her favourite pyjamas, soft and comfortable, the starry pattern always reminding her of wonderful adventures in the universe with a certain remarkable person.

“Of course you can,” she answered, pleased at the huge grin this caused on the Doctor’s face. “They’re my favourites,” she added, and then felt rather foolish, unsure why she had mentioned that silly detail. But if anything, it seemed to delight the Doctor even more.

“Yaz’s favourite pyjamas! This is brilliant!” and Yaz suddenly felt her cheeks flush again at the thought of the Doctor wearing them, the soft fabric against her skin. To her embarrassment, the Doctor noticed this time and moved close to look into Yaz’s eyes in concern. 

“Are you OK? Do you have a fever? That’s a symptom of the virus, you know,” she gently placed the back of her hand on Yaz’s forehead, then her cheek, and Yaz found herself frozen to the spot, unable even to breathe. “You do feel warm,” the Doctor said softly. Yaz forced herself to back away and shake her head.

“I’m fine,” she stuttered. “I’ll go in the bathroom first,” and fled down the corridor.


	3. Day 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I can’t thank you all enough for the lovely comments – you are absolutely making my days! Thank you!

Yaz wasn’t sure if the Doctor slept much that night, or even at all, but she was quite amazed that she herself slept soundly until the morning. Sleep provided a comforting escape from the anxiety of the lockdown, and also the odd feelings she was experiencing about being in such close proximity with the Doctor for so long. There was a moment on waking of blissful ignorance, before the reality of the situation descended on her like a heavy weight. She headed towards the bathroom but was halted at the door to her parents’ bedroom by what she could see through the open door. 

The Doctor was not asleep, but was sitting on the chair by the large window, feet drawn up and arms wrapped around her knees. She was wearing the soft pyjamas and gazing out of the window, unaware that she was being watched. The morning sun illuminated her profile, an ethereal glow surrounding her, strands of hair catching the light. The image was like some classical painting, except the stars on the pyjamas lent an incongruity to the image, an innocent and child-like quality. Yaz found her feet unwilling to move, her eyes not wanting to relinquish the beautiful form before her. 

And then, as if she sensed something – or maybe she had known Yaz was there all along - the Doctor turned her head towards her with an unfathomable look in her eyes. Yaz felt as if she’d been caught doing something forbidden and scurried onward to the bathroom, shame licking at her heels. She made her shower a little cooler than normal, unsettled by the strange feelings that kept creeping up on her. She shrugged it off, assuming it was anxiety about the virus and the lockdown. By the time she emerged from the bathroom, hair damp with curls falling down her back, she felt a little more lucid. 

She curled her legs underneath her as she sat on a chair looking out towards the TARDIS, which remained frustratingly close yet inaccessible. The police had evidently decided, like the Doctor, that it was in the perfect place to park, because a van was still sitting next to it, with two officers sitting in the front drinking hot drinks. Yaz wondered idly if they had tried to get inside it, finding the door firmly locked, or if the Doctor had placed a small perception filter on it to prevent any undue interest. Either way, the officers appeared content sitting in the comfort of their van. 

There was a lot of noise coming from the bathroom, which went on for a surprisingly long time, before the Doctor finally emerged, amidst clouds of steam. Her hair was wet and her cheeks rosy from the warmth.

“Do you want to use my hairdryer?” Yaz asked. “I usually just let my hair air dry, but you can use it if you want.” 

“You know, I’ve never actually used one,” the Doctor pondered. “I usually just go out somewhere a bit blowy and that does the job. I am not sure how to do it,” she admitted. 

“I can teach you, if you want,” Yaz offered hesitantly, and was rewarded with one of the Doctor’s huge grins.

“Really? That would be amazing. Hair drying lessons from Yaz!” In contrast to the surreal stillness that the Doctor had shown when gazing out of the window, she now began to bounce on her toes and from foot to foot, fizzing with excitement. Yaz led her to sit on the stool in her bedroom in front of the dressing table and plugged the hairdryer into the wall socket. The Doctor sat expectantly, watching Yaz’s every move in the mirror with bright eyes, and Yaz felt suddenly nervous. She was far from proficient at styling hair – the benefit of her long hair meant that she was a pro at tying it up in a variety of different ways, but had little experience of working with shorter hair. Also she had not done anyone else’s hair since Sonya was about 9, which was the age at which she had decided Yaz was far too uncool and wouldn’t let her anywhere near her hair any more. 

But the Doctor was still watching her with wide, eager eyes and a smile on her face, so she took a deep breath and picked up her hairbrush, at first just gently brushing the blonde hair which had clearly just been rubbed with a towel. There were some tangles, and she noted how thick the Doctor’s hair was in comparison with her own. The Doctor didn’t seem bothered whenever the brush caught on a snag, and Yaz gently teased each one loose. It felt oddly intimate and Yaz realised her hands were shaking just a little – she hoped it wasn’t noticeable because she had no idea how she would explain it. She wasn’t even sure herself why it was happening. Once the tangles were cleared, she turned on the hairdryer and began brushing and drying, trying hard to just focus on the job at hand, and not the feel of the Doctor’s hair on her fingers. She was concentrating so hard on this that she was surprised when she glanced at the Doctor’s face in the mirror and realised her eyes were closed. She switched off the hairdryer in concern, at which the Doctor’s eyes opened and she turned to look at Yaz in consternation.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I was going to ask you the same thing!” Yaz responded.

“It was really relaxing,” the Doctor mumbled, looking back in the mirror. “It felt nice.” 

Yaz didn’t know what to say to that, but it made her feel warm inside that something she was doing had the power to get the energetic Doctor to relax. She filed this knowledge away in her brain, wondering if it might be useful in the days to come. She switched the hairdryer back on and continued brushing and drying, admitting to herself that it was almost as relaxing for her as it was for the Doctor.

Neither of them were sure how much time passed before the Doctor’s hair was dry and Yaz switched off the hairdryer. The Doctor drew in a deep breath and sighed, stretching her arms out to the side. “Can we do that every day? I think I am a big fan of having my hair dried!” she sighed, prompting Yaz to chuckle.

“I suppose so,” she answered, whilst inside her stomach flipped at the thought of getting to repeat the activity. “But I thought you were supposed to be learning to do it yourself,” she added, feeling as if this was the sensible response.

“Well I am sure I could do it now,” mused the Doctor thoughtfully. “But I don’t think it would be anywhere near as relaxing.” 

“Doctor, I didn’t think anything would get you to relax!” Yaz joked.

“What, me? I am excellent at…” the Doctor tailed off, noticing the sceptical look Yaz was giving her. She continued sheepishly, “OK, maybe I am not very good at relaxing. But now I know this will work.” Yaz nodded proudly, wondering if she could add ‘getting a hyperactive Time Lord to chill’ to her CV.

_____________________________________________

The morning was spent watching the news and drinking cups of tea. Texts were exchanged between Yaz and her family, and the Doctor sent long, rambling WhatsApp messages to Graham and Ryan. Yaz could just imagine the look on both of their faces as they listened to the Doctor waffling about the underrated joy of having your hair blow dried. 

However, the simple pleasure of the day’s earlier activities were gradually eroded away by the grim statistics of the worsening pandemic until Yaz decided she couldn’t keep watching any more. She wandered over to the window in time to see the doorway into the flats below open and a wild-eyed man run out. The officers, who had appeared to have little to do except sit and drink coffee until that point, sprang into action and stopped him from getting further than a few metres. She could see his tears as he was escorted back to the doorway and realised she had seen him around the flats. She thought he lived on the floor below and it gave her another spike of fear. This wasn’t some distant tragedy happening on the other side of the world – or even on another world. This was right here, literally on her doorstep. 

“Doctor, I need to do something,” she announced. “I can’t just sit here doing nothing, it makes me feel so useless, so helpless. I need to be busy.”

“Any ideas? We’re a bit limited on options,” the Doctor asked, looking around as if there might be a brand new activity in that very room they simply hadn’t noticed before. Her eyes fell upon the coffee machine. “Ooh I could teach you how to upgrade the coffee machine so it will stream Netflix,” Yaz’s eyebrows shot up in incredulity, but whatever happened, surely it would be a good distraction.

“Go on then, though if you break it, I am not going to be responsible for my dad’s response!” She said. 

The Doctor hopped off the sofa. After Yaz had located the tool box that was squirrelled at the back of a little-used cupboard, behind a laminator and a badge-maker, they both settled themselves at the table. The Doctor laid out with precision a variety of the tools, the sonic screwdriver, and the sacrificial coffee machine. 

Yaz watched carefully as the Doctor used a regular screwdriver to unscrew the back of the machine and slip the cover off.

“Now I am going to show you why a sonic screwdriver is superior to a non-sonic one,” the Doctor said, looking at Yaz with her eyebrows raised and delight dancing in her eyes. She picked up the sonic and pointed it towards a corner where there were several more screws. Yaz gasped softly as they all unscrewed at the same time when the Doctor pressed the button. The Doctor seemed pleased at Yaz’s response, taking a moment to watch her friend’s amazed face. It registered somewhere inside that she was deriving a lot of pleasure from Yaz’s positive reactions to things, but brushed off any doubts about the reason for this, putting it down to a consequence of being contained in a small area.

Then an idea struck her. “Here, have a go!” she said, handing over the sonic. She gestured for Yaz to point it at another corner with a number of screws. And when Yaz pressed the button, lo and behold, they all rapidly twisted out and landed on the tabletop. 

“I think that’s the first time I’ve seen the sonic used as an actual screwdriver!” said Yaz, impressed. The Doctor scoffed in mock outrage.

“My sonic has defused bombs, opened locks, operated alien technology and done all sorts of other things, and you’re impressed that it works on screws?” She pulled her best horrified face, causing Yaz to chuckle and pat her hand.

“Of course I’m impressed by all of those things,” she assured her friend, her hand resting on top of the Doctor’s. “It’s just that after all that, being an actual screwdriver seems so ordinary!”

A moment passed until they both realised they were staring at Yaz’s hand resting on top of the Doctor’s. The Doctor cleared her throat and pulled her hand back to continue dismantling the coffee machine, and Yaz resumed her observation, though she couldn’t help but notice the pinkness colouring the Doctor’s cheeks. It caused her stomach to flutter pleasantly, something that had begun when their hands were connected. An idea was starting to form in the back of her mind about all these little moments, and she tried to ignore it, tried to push it back down and focus on the task at hand. 

It gradually began to dawn on her that the hand was part of the problem. Yaz was watching the Doctor’s hands as she worked. She had never really paid attention to them before, but now she couldn’t look away and found herself mesmerised as the Doctor’s long, dextrous fingers manipulated the various parts of the coffee machine. She was laying random bits out on the table, and Yaz suddenly realised she had been asked a question, and had absolutely no idea what it was. She jerked her head up and looked at the Doctor, feeling strangely guilty. 

“Erm, pardon? I didn’t catch that,” she faltered. The Doctor tilted her head ever so slightly to one side and paused before repeating her question. Yaz couldn’t work out what that small movement meant, and the same feeling surged over her that she had felt first thing that morning, when the Doctor had seen her at the bedroom door watching her – like she had been caught doing something she shouldn’t.

“I asked if you knew much about electronics,” the Doctor repeated. She noticed that Yaz seemed just a tiny bit flustered, and was reminded of the moment before she’d run to the bathroom the evening before, after the Doctor had touched her face to feel for fever. Had Yaz always responded to her like this? 

“Electronics? Erm, no, not really,” Yaz replied. She had to get a grip on herself. Did she know about electronics? Her brain didn’t seem to be functioning properly at that moment, maybe she did know about it but had forgotten? When the Doctor looked back down at all the parts on the table and started explaining them, it gave Yaz’s brain a chance to begin working again and she tried to listen to the explanations about the different components. 

The lesson continued as the Doctor used the sonic to retune various bits, wired things in different ways, and did other complicated things Yaz didn’t even begin to understand. But she nodded along anyway, holding things when requested and passing tools the Doctor pointed at, and some time later, the coffee machine was back in one piece. The Doctor grinned at Yaz and told her to press one of the buttons, then gave a quiet but heartfelt “Yessss!” as the little screen fizzed into life when Yaz did so, showing the menu screen for Netflix. 

“I admit I am impressed,” Yaz smiled. “But the big question is, does it still make coffee as well?” So they tried it, and ended up with two mugs of perfect coffee, much to Yaz’s relief. She really hadn’t fancied the idea of explaining to her dad why he couldn’t have his morning cup of coffee any more. 

Sandwiches for lunch followed (cheese and salad for Yaz, cheese and ketchup for the Doctor – “It’s like cold, uncooked pizza!” she had proclaimed triumphantly, though Yaz remained unconvinced), but once they had cleaned up the plates, another lull settled whilst they tried to think of ways to pass the afternoon.

“You taught me how to blow dry hair,” the Doctor mused thoughtfully, “And I taught you how to rewire a coffee machine. So we are in a tie break at the moment.” Yaz looked at her pointedly. 

“It’s not a competition, Doctor,” she admonished good-naturedly. She recognised the spark that lit up the Doctor’s eyes. “Doctor?”

“Well what if we did make it a competition?” the Doctor was fired up and back to bouncing. “Who has the best ideas for passing the time in lock down?” Yaz put her face in her hands, though she couldn’t supress the chuckle that forced its way out. The global situation was terrible, and the anxiety this caused was a continuous background noise in Yaz’s head, but she knew that she couldn’t be in better company to take her mind off it.

So they settled down to construct an elaborate score board on the back of an old poster Yaz had found rolled up in the same cupboard which had housed the tool box. Sonya had a veritable treasure chest of coloured pens which they used to full effect, and thus the remainder of the afternoon passed with the two of them sitting amiably shoulder to shoulder, sharing laughs as easily as the pens. The Doctor ceremonially marked one point for each of them for their efforts so far and they stuck it up on the cupboard door.

Dinner consisted of Sonya’s leftover pizza, which Yaz felt ought to be eaten before it went too stale, and was somehow not surprised when the Doctor added some slices of banana on top of her half, stating it was a Swedish delicacy. And before they knew it, Yaz was yawning and finding it hard to keep her eyes open. She didn’t know why, considering they had hardly expended any actual energy during the day, but she found once again that sleep overtook her quickly and she was returned to the peaceful embrace of slumber.


	4. The Night of the Laminator

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: do not attempt to do what the Doctor did. I don’t even know those things are all possible, I am not trying it!

Yaz was deep in the clutches of silent and heavy sleep, the sort of sleep that not even dreams could intrude upon, when suddenly her eyes blinked open. She felt awash with the head-swimming giddiness of unexpected awakening, confused about where she was and why she was there. And why she was suddenly awake. Her eyes focused in the darkness on the familiarity of her room in her family’s flat, felt the softness of her bed underneath her, and noticed the unnatural lack of sound from outside. Usually there was a continual background white noise of humanity audible from the flat- whether it be the people who lived in the flats, the traffic passing by, the trains or all manner of other noises that come part and parcel of living in a city. There was none of that right now, and at first she wondered if it was this strange silence which had woken her, like the silence of a new snowfall in the night.

Then she heard another noise. Something like a very soft whimper, as if someone was trying very hard to not make a sound but was failing.

And then the smell hit her… What on earth? Burning? Something acrid and unpleasant? Yaz sat up in a panic, but there was no smoke, no heat, she was fairly certain the flat was not on fire. What was causing the smell? Who had made the sound?

Obviously there was only one person who could have made the sound, and Yaz knew the Doctor had 1) an insatiable curiosity and 2) a surprising lack of common sense on occasion. The combination of the two had led to some interesting situations in the past (where “interesting” meant things like being chased by a large stone-like alien taking exception to being licked by the Doctor, who had mistaken it for an ancient construction). She wasn’t sure what the Doctor could have done to result in the dreadful odour now permeating the whole flat, and she almost didn’t want to know. 

When she came round the corner and saw the Doctor in the dark living room, the first reaction which came involuntarily from her lips, was “Oh my god!”. Her second reaction, once her brain had kicked into gear, was to rush over and help her. Her third reaction, which she tried very hard to supress, was to laugh. 

The Doctor was crouched over the table, the necklines of her blue t-shirt and the white undershirt caught in a laminator, which was smoking gently on the table and was apparently the source of the pervasive smell of burning.

“I seem to be stuck…” the Doctor began, as Yaz covered her mouth with a hand to hide the smirk that was refusing to leave her lips. “Do you think you could help?” The look on the Doctor’s face was simply priceless, an exceptional combination of worry, guilt, apology and embarrassment. Yaz was almost tempted to go and get her phone to take a photograph, but she didn’t suppose that would go down very well. She switched on the overhead light to better illuminate the situation, and they both blinked in the sudden brightness. Next, Yaz unplugged the laminator, wondering where on earth it had come from, and only then noticed that the table and the floor around it were littered with things that had been laminated. There were various bits of whatever random paper the Doctor had managed to get her hands on, including the virus leaflet, a phone bill, a “you were out when we tried to deliver a parcel” card, Najia’s shopping list, and an unopened letter to Sonya marked URGENT.

Then there were other flat things that had obviously been lying around and proved themselves to be fair game: a foil yogurt lid, Najia’s library card (which was already laminated and now doubly so), an embroidered doily made by a random elderly relative, a tissue (unused, hopefully) and a five pound note.

And then there were a number of things which apparently had not been flat before they went through the laminator, though they were very much so now: a biscuit, a tomato, the washing up sponge, a selection of cheesy puffs (the rest of the packet lying discarded on the kitchen counter), some flowerheads which a glance at the plant pot on the windowsill showed had come from Hakim’s treasured orchid…

Some of these things had evidently contributed to the foul stench, but now, hanging halfway out of the back of the laminator, was a piece of the pizza which had not been eaten at dinner, the rest now jammed in the roller along with half the Doctor’s t-shirts.

The only thing Yaz could think of to say was: “Doctor!” in a voice of pure astonishment, gesturing at the fruits of the Time Lord’s labours. The Doctor’s face now took on an expression of unadulterated pride, evidently having mistaken Yaz’s shock for being impressed.

“I know!” she said enthusiastically. “It was touch and go with the tomato because I thought the juice would get into the wiring, but…” she tailed off, realising Yaz had folded her arms and was shaking her head, though there definitely seemed to be a smile playing at the edge of her lips, despite a concerted attempt to look stern. “I laminated some flowers for you,” she tried, reaching for the orchid heads and offering it to Yaz with what she hoped was a winning smile. The night was not going the way she had planned. She had wanted to make something nice for Yaz, and now Yaz was having to rescue her from a vicious laminator intent on bringing about her ruin. 

Yaz leaned down to look closely at the laminator, to see if there would be any way of pulling the Doctor’s tops free. This brought her face into close proximity with the Doctor’s, and as she peered into the opening of the machine, she could feel the Doctor’s breath on her cheek. Her heart skipped a beat. She turned her head to look at the state of the clothing that had yanked the Doctor perilously close to ending up with laminated hair, had it not been overwhelmed with an unlaminatable combination of pizza and cloth. As Yaz’s eyes drifted along, she realised with shock that it had been pulled such a way that there was now a clear view straight down the Doctor’s chest and she jerked her head upwards in order not to look, resulting in smacking both their heads together. 

The Doctor scronched her face at the pain, and Yaz began to stammer. “Oh Doctor… I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to… I mean… are you… was that your head?” she absently rubbed the bump on her own head. 

“It was,” replied the Doctor, “If you really wanted to beat me up, you didn’t have to set a rogue laminator on me to give yourself the advantage.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t even know we had a laminator,” Yaz said in concern. She couldn’t stop her hands from shaking as she tried to pull the Doctor’s t-shirt from the laminator whilst keeping her eyes averted, but it was no use, the laminator was determined not to relinquish its grip. 

“It won’t budge if I pull it,” Yaz admitted. 

“What if we try together?” the Doctor suggested. In trying to get a good grip on the fabric, they ended up with their hands intertwined together, and all Yaz could focus on was those hands which had enthralled her earlier now tangled up with her own, the fingers firmly gripping hers around the material. But she couldn’t actually look, because doing so would afford her an uninhibited view of what was under the t-shirt, and she didn’t think her heart could take it – and nor could she take the shame when the Doctor would know precisely what she had been looking at. 

The Doctor, for her part, was feeling strangely warm, and she wasn’t convinced it was due to the nearness of the hot laminator. One part of her brain was currently screaming at her that there was something else hot in the room, and another part of her brain was at the same time horrified at such a reaction, and was trying to shut it down and focus on the task at hand, which was gaining freedom from the rollers of doom. The feeling of Yaz’s hands in her own, her face so close that she could feel curls from her sleep tousled hair softly tickling her nose seemed to be causing her hearts to malfunction, racing as if she had been running a marathon.

In spite of their combined effort, It was clear that nothing was going to get the laminator to release the t-shirts, and Yaz took a moment to step back from the heated situation and try and catch her breath. The Doctor was afforded no such respite, and desperation was beginning to set in. 

“Right!” she announced with fervour. “Get some scissors!” She felt frustrated at being beaten by such a simple machine, as well as at how her body seemed to be conspiring against her whenever Yaz was close. She needed to escape the current stalemate with the laminator and go and stick her head out of a window to get some cool fresh air. A moment later, Yaz was brandishing an impressively large pair of kitchen scissors, but she quickly came to the realisation that there would be absolutely no way of cutting the Doctor free without a clear and direct view of exactly what she had been trying to avoid looking at. 

“Er, will you be able to do it?” she asked hopefully.

The Doctor flailed her arms uselessly to illustrate the fact that no, she definitely could not do it herself, and it was only as Yaz came closer, her face flaming, that the Doctor grasped the reason for her discomfort. She tried to make light of the situation with what she thought was a witty comment.

“Would it have been easier if I had worn a white bra instead of the black?” and the instant she said it and saw the absolutely mortified expression on Yaz’s face, she understood that perhaps it had not been as droll when said out loud as it had seemed in her head. She shut her mouth firmly, deciding that silence was probably a wiser choice as Yaz cut the t-shirt as quickly but carefully as possible, and finally the Doctor was free. She had a gaping hole in the front of the t-shirt leaving nothing to the imagination and a very pressing need to get some fresh air.

Yaz, for her part, was standing immobile, still brandishing the scissors, mouth hanging open and face on fire. She screamed internally at her brain to start working again, and once it restarted basic functions and she could move again, the best she could give was: “I’llgobacktobedwecanclearupinthemorning” and almost ran to the safety of her bedroom, closing the door behind her and leaning back against it, breathing heavily, eyes closed in utter dismay at what had occurred. How on earth could she ever look the Doctor in the eyes again?

After Yaz had departed the scene, the Doctor let out the breath she realised she had been holding – and felt like she had been holding from the moment she realised she had gotten herself into a situation she couldn’t get out of without help. She hated asking for help at the best of times, and things had basically gone downhill from that point onwards. She glared at the now defunct laminator, which just hours ago she had excitedly spotted in the cupboard when Yaz had been searching for the tool box. It had lured her in with promises of all manner of laminated delights, and had instead been the cause of her downfall. She pulled the edges of the ruined t-shirt across herself and went to poke her head out of the window into the cool night air, gazing longingly at the TARDIS, so tantalisingly close, and yet still inaccessible. 

“Oh look at the situations I get myself into without you, Old Girl,” she breathed quietly. She almost fancied she could hear the TARDIS reply, telling her that she managed to get into just as many awkward situations even when they were not separated. She sighed in the knowledge that this was, indeed, true, and retired to her bedroom to lie on the bed and hope that sleep might let her forget the indignity for just a few hours.


	5. Day 3 Begins...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies that this chapter is shorter, but it made sense to split it from what comes later.
> 
> Also, you know that top that Yaz gives the Doctor.

It had taken Yaz a very long time to get back to sleep, so much adrenaline had been pumping through her system. The sleep that did come was broken and punctuated by vivid and startling dreams involving the Doctor in ways that left Yaz feeling breathless and confused. She gave up on seeking any more rest by the time the clock was saying 7am and dragged herself to her feet to head to the bathroom. 

After yesterday morning and her unexpected view of the Doctor gazing out of the window, Yaz was surprised to see the door to her parents’ bedroom was ajar once again, and though she felt guilty about doing it, her muscles conspired against her and turned her head to peer through. 

The Doctor was not at the window this morning, but asleep on the bed. The covers were thrown aside and she was stretched diagonally across the bed, arms and legs flung haphazardly in every direction. One foot was dangling over the edge of the bed and Yaz noticed she still had her stripy socks on. The pyjama top had ridden up ever-so slightly to display a glimpse of the pale skin of her stomach, making Yaz’s breath catch for just a moment. Her hair was scattered on the pillow creating a chaotic golden frame for her face. It was her face that took Yaz’s breath away – never had she seen such an unguarded peace in her friend’s features. A pink blush coloured her cheeks, her mouth slightly open. The soft sighs of deep sleep breathing seemed like the only sound in the entire universe at that moment. Yaz felt like she was in another dream until the Doctor turned her head in sleep, lifting Yaz out of her reverie. As quietly as she could, she crept past the door and into the bathroom. It was only once the door was safely closed behind her and she was sat on the edge of the bath that she forced herself to calm her trembling hands and slow her breathing. 

This was ridiculous, she told herself. First of all, she had no right to watch the Doctor in so private and vulnerable a moment as she had. She had to get a grip on herself or she was going to end up losing her mind. The Doctor was her good and dear friend, someone who had saved her life on numerous occasions (in more ways than one, her brain unhelpfully added, but she shut that down almost instantly) and with whom she had to live in fairly close proximity for an unknown amount of time to come. She didn’t understand why her body seemed to be taking matters into its own hands when it came to certain interactions with the Doctor. It had to stop! She was a grown woman, a police officer no less, and she was quite capable of managing her emotions, no matter how rogue they seemed intent on going. 

She took a cold shower which both woke her up and helped her feel more in control of herself. After dressing, she started the coffee machine, and as she waited for it to work its magic, she started braiding her hair into a damp French plait to keep it out of the way.

The Doctor woke gradually, relishing the feeling of drifting out of a rare deep sleep, her limbs feeling heavy, resting on the bed. Yaz’s parents’ bed. Near Yaz’s bedroom. And Yaz. Also near the table which had been the location of the embarrassing incident in the night. The memory crashed into her head and she let out a small groan as it obliterated the pleasant fuzziness of lingering sleep. She really couldn’t work out why Yaz seemed to be getting under her skin so much. She was thousands of years old, after all, and she was used to being around pretty much every different kind of person there could ever be. So why was Yasmin Khan so confusing? 

The Doctor stood up resolutely, planting her socked feet firmly on the floor. If there was one thing she was particularly good at, it was burying her feelings deep down and getting on with life – that was what she would apparently have to do right now. There was no way of knowing how long they would end up trapped inside this increasingly claustrophobic flat. No, she caught herself before it was too late. It wasn’t the flat’s fault, the flat was innocent in all this. She needed to stop letting her emotions run around without any supervision. She reigned them back in and hoped now she was aware of the danger of letting them out that she would find it easier to remain in control of herself.

A nice, refreshing cold shower would help to wash away the discomfort of the nocturnal events and she headed to the bathroom as quietly as she could. She had not heard any stirring from Yaz and assumed she was still asleep. She froze at the bathroom door, however. She could see around the corner towards the table (studiously ignoring the scattered laminations on and around it) and behindit, at the counter where the coffee machine stood – Yaz. 

Her back was towards the Doctor, and she was braiding her hair in a way that looked terribly complicated to the Doctor. Under the vest top Yaz was wearing, she could see the muscles in her arms and back flexing as she reached behind herself, deft fingers manipulating soft waves into neat order. She wanted to stay there forever, watching this secret beauty. But then the Doctor checked herself, forcing her feet to walk into the bathroom and into a cool shower. She had this, it would all be fine.

It wasn’t until she had dried and was dressing afterwards that she suddenly remembered that her tops were ruined and she had no alternative. Rats! She was going to have to ask Yaz for help again, so she cracked the door open and poked her head out. 

Yaz had finished her hair and was sipping her coffee when she heard a cough behind her and turned to see the Doctor’s head sticking out of the bathroom door. She knew this would be the ultimate test of her resolve to keep her feelings under check. Deep breath, smile and speak: “Good morning Doctor,” yes, her voice sounded sure and not at all tentative. Officer Khan was back in the building.

“Hi, erm, bit of a problem with my t-shirts,” the Doctor offered with a scronch, trying to make it sound like just a minor inconvenience. “Don’t suppose I could borrow something?”

“Oh yes, of course!” Yaz sprang into action and hurried into her room to rifle through her wardrobe. She held back a mild panic about what on earth might be appropriate to offer the Doctor, remembering her choice of the pyjamas with stars. She pulled out a loose white top with small rainbows dotted all over it which, the more she thought about it, seemed to be right up the Doctor’s alley. She passed it through the bathroom door, pleased with her calm ability to not peek through the gap, and strode back to finish her coffee. She could adult with the best of them, she mused, as she sipped the hot liquid. Her eyes drifted to the large, colourful score board stuck up on the cupboard door. She may be adulting, but she also wanted to beat the Doctor. She began to ponder on possibilities for the day ahead. 

The Doctor had received the rainbow sprinkled top with utter joy – Yaz had the best clothes! She pulled it on and admired it in the mirror in the bathroom. It felt a little odd to just have one top rather than two, and for it to be loose rather than more form-fitting, but none of those things mattered because it was awesome. 

And today she knew precisely how she was going to win more points on the score board!


	6. Happy Flensday!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our hopeless heroes find their determination to carry on as normal severely tested.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter really got away from me and I have split it into two, so think of chapter 7 tomorrow as actually being chapter 6 part 2.
> 
> Many thanks to the laminator fam for the creation of Flensday, and also the suggestion about the fireworks memory! Perfection!
> 
> By the way, I was totally thinking of that publicity picture from series 11 of Yaz smiling in open mouthed delight with the Doctor behind her when describing the fireworks memory. It’s one of my favourite pictures of her.

Yaz was highly relieved that the Doctor had clearly decided to act as if the previous night had never happened at all. She could get behind that approach even if parts of her brain were nagging her that this may not be the most healthy way to deal with the events. Her attention was caught by a sound coming from down the corridor, and she refused to be disappointed when she realised it was the hairdryer, signifying that the Doctor was sorting her own hair. Instead, she told herself to be pleased that she’d taught an alien how to blow dry their hair, not a claim many people could make.

She’d had a few ideas of things to do that day, hoping that to gain a few points and move ahead of the Doctor on the score board, but they all went out of the window when the Doctor burst in and announced with great pomp and ceremony: “Happy Flensday!” Her arms were flung wide as if she was addressing a huge crowd and she gave her biggest smile, waiting for a reaction. Yaz couldn’t help but smile back, but also shook her head in bafflement.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she ventured, causing the Doctor to deflate a little, and hurriedly added, “But I am sure it’s very exciting?” She genuinely had no idea where the Doctor was going with this, but the last thing she wanted was to disappoint her friend.

“Oh yes, Flensday is a major celebration on the planet of Stanthia. It’s the day they give thanks for the miracle of the Great Picnic Basket of Plenty that their ancestors believed was a gift from their god, a giant two-headed space gerbil. Turned out the picnic were actually left behind by visiting space tourists who came back two days later to find all their food had been eaten, but they all had a good laugh about it afterwards. And, well, any excuse for an annual knees up.” 

Yaz was left momentarily speechless by the Doctor’s ridiculous explanation – it was a good one even by her standards. She looked pointedly at the Time Lord, raising her eyebrows as if to challenge the veracity, and the other woman simply returned the look with an enigmatic smile. 

“OK, Doctor,” Yaz laughed in response. “So how do we celebrate?” 

“Well!” Began the Doctor, rubbing her hands together. “The traditional Flensday breakfast involves the deep-fried entrails of a large rodent native to their planet, in honour of their two-headed giant gerbil god, but seeing as we don’t have a convenient large rodent lying around anywhere…” she paused, looking at Yaz questioningly with her eyebrows raised. 

“No, Doctor, I can safely say there are no rodents or entrails. Not even my dad would get that… adventurous… with his cooking!” 

The Doctor continued, undeterred. “The next best thing is probably what they give the children, which is a mock version of the entrails. Kind of like sweet, squiggly strings.”

“Like spaghetti?” Yaz suggested gingerly.

“Exactly like spaghetti!” The Doctor actually did a little jump of excitement and rushed past Yaz to start rifling through the cupboards. “Do you have any? It would be perfect.”

Yaz reached over the Doctor’s shoulder and pulled out a packet to offer to her. But as she reached for it gleefully, Yaz suddenly pulled her hand back. 

“Spaghetti… for breakfast… Really?” She did not sound remotely convinced, but the Doctor’s enthusiasm was unsquashable and she grabbed the pasta.

“Yes, with something like strawberry jam to simulate the blood” 

“Oh my God, this sounds more like an autopsy than a breakfast!” Yaz gulped, but there was no stopping the Doctor, who had managed to find a large saucepan to fill with water. Having set it on the stovetop to boil, she started rooting through the fridge and let out an exclamation of delight on discovering a jar of raspberry jam. 

Yaz could only watch, dumbfounded, as the Doctor busied herself around the kitchen preparing what was surely going to be the most bizarre meal of her entire life. And a short while later, she was presented with a bowl of spaghetti tossed in raspberry jam and a few other unlikely ingredients, on top of which she had sprinkled the contents of a bag of walnut halves she’d found in a cupboard. “To signify the brains,” she had explained unnecessarily. 

Yaz reluctantly accepted the bowl and spoon being proffered. The Doctor watched her with delighted anticipation, clearly waiting to see Yaz take her first mouthful. The younger woman took a deep breath and scooped a small amount into her mouth, hardly daring to chew. Her eyes opened wide as she did so, though, and her eyebrows lifted in surprise. After swallowing, she couldn’t help but laugh.

“That’s actually not bad!” she said incredulously.

The Doctor rocked back on her heels, with joy radiating from her entire body. “I told you I were a good cook,” and she tucked into her own bowl with gusto. 

Once they had finished, Yaz was forced to admit that breakfast had been an unexpected success and grudgingly added a point for the Doctor onto the score board. Unwilling as she was to let the Doctor take the lead in points, she was still keen to find out what was coming next and turned expectantly. The Doctor’s brows furrowed in thought. 

“I am not quite sure how we do the next bit,” she mused. “They paint their faces with patterns that represent different moments in their history. But we don’t have face paints, and even I know it’s not a good idea to use pen,” It sounded almost like the the Doctor was speaking from past experience about that – Yaz wouldn’t have put it past her. But she did have a possible solution to the face paint predicament. 

“I don’t have that many colours, but we could just use make up,” she proposed. “I’m sure me and Sonya between us have something useful. 

“Yasmin Khan, that’s a brilliant idea!” It pleased Yaz to make the Doctor so happy and to receive such praise. It didn’t take her long to gather her own and her sister’s make up supplies, and soon they were both sitting cross legged on the floor facing each other. Make up was strewn on the rug next to them. 

The Doctor examined the choices thoughtfully and picked up an eyebrow pencil. “I’ll go first!” she stated, leaning forwards and gently holding Yaz’s chin with one hand. Incredibly tenderly, she began to trace a swirl onto Yaz’s cheek, and Yaz’s brain went into meltdown.

With the Doctor’s face so close, she could feel the warmth from her breath on her lips, the fingers holding her chin so carefully as if she might break (she really felt at this very moment that was a serious risk), the almost imperceptible sound of her breathing and the gentle strokes of the pencil on her cheek. The sensory overload sent her brain spiralling into panic, her eyes closing in some form of insufficient self-protection. This action, and the accompanying tremble that travelled involuntarily through Yaz’s body caused the Doctor to pause in concern. 

Pleasedon’taskwhat’swrongpleasedon’taskwhat’swrong Yaz’s brain was practically screaming.

“What’s wrong?” 

“I…” Yaz stopped herself almost immediately. Her voice was quivering. She took a shaky breath, mentally cursing her body for betraying her despite her determination that today would not have any awkwardness at all. “I think I’m just ticklish, that’s all,” she finished. It was a lame excuse, she knew, though she was mildly impressed with herself for coming up with any even remotely plausible explanation.

“I’ll try and be quick then,” the Doctor responded. Here she was, painting her friend’s face, nothing strange in that at all. Totally normal thing for friends to do.   
Yes it is, isn’t it, Doctor? Friends do this sort of thing all the time.   
I am glad you agree, Doctor, but can you explain why being so close to her is making you feel so warm?   
You had to point that out, did you?   
Yes, of course I did, what kind of a Doctor would I be if I didn’t notice your physiological responses to things?   
My point is that it was not a terribly helpful observation.   
It’s true, though, isn’t it.   
It… might be.   
Whose good idea was painting faces?   
I am fairly sure it was yours.   
No, I am fairly sure it was yours, I’d never come up with such a ridiculous activity.   
She’s staring at me.   
That’s because you’ve been sitting here for too long just holding her face and gazing into the middle distance.   
That’s your fault!   
Then stop arguing with me and talk to her!  
The Doctor cleared her throat. “So the Stanthians have a meaning behind all the patterns they use, but they really aren’t relevant to us. I am making this pattern to represent the first time we met, on the train near Sheffield.” 

“You said you were going to call me Yaz because we were friends.” Yaz whispered. She remembered the events on that train so clearly. She’d wanted to take charge of the situation, so she’d be able to prove to her superior officers that she could handle a crisis, but this strange woman in tattered clothes had taken over, led her on adventure after adventure, and given her a feeling of being alive such as she didn’t think she’d ever known in her entire life before. 

“I’m a very good judge of character,” the Doctor smiled. Swapping the eyebrow pencil for a lipstick and lip brush, she began on the other cheek.

“This pattern is to remember the moment you all decided to stay with me, to travel with me,” she stopped herself from adding “So I wouldn’t be alone,” but Yaz seemed to be able to read minds, or at least read between the lines.

“So you wouldn’t be alone,” she breathed, almost but not quite lost to the sensual feeling of the swirls being drawn on her skin.

“Yes.” The Doctor admitted. “So I wouldn’t be alone. I’m not very good at being alone,” and that was more than she had wanted to say. She needed to change the subject and stop her friend from seeing into her soul. She looked down at the artistic options provided by the make up and chose some blue eye shadow that Sonya had once acquired for an Eighties-themed party, setting to work on Yaz’s forehead.

“And this memory is from New Year.” This particular recollection was vivid in the Doctor’s mind – all those New Year celebrations in one night. She’d asked the others what their favourites had been, but they had not asked for hers. The answer was something she’d kept close to her heart, a small spark of comfort and hope, to be used sparingly when things became dark to remind her that there were moments of beauty and perfection in an imperfect and sometimes cruel universe. They had been watching what were purported to be the most amazing fireworks in the universe, though she felt this was a bold claim from a people who had only recently discovered the means to travel to nearby planets. Nonetheless, they were spectacular in their colours and patterns and well worthy of inclusion in their tour of New Year celebrations. 

They had been crammed in with thousands of people from all over that particular galaxy, pressed up against each other and against strangers. Between the Doctor and Graham, Yaz had slung her arms round both of them to keep her balance in the constantly moving hordes of people. The sheer joy, love and unity in the crowd had been intoxicating, and the Doctor turned her head to look at her fam to see Yaz, face upturned in wonder as a series of fireworks burst into a stunning rainbow of colours above them, the colours sparkling in her wide eyes, her mouth open in a smile of pure pleasure. To the Doctor, this image was more beautiful than any of the fireworks they had seen that night, a secret wonder that belonged only to her. It was this that the Doctor was seeing in her mind as she painted the final pattern on Yaz’s face, her internal monologue silenced for once.

Yaz kept her eyes open this time and looked up at the woman who was unfathomably old painting so reverently using her as the canvas, and a distracting thought flashed into her mind of the Doctor painting on more than just her face. Fortuitously, at that moment the Doctor sat back and turned her attention to putting the eyeshadow she had been using back in the box it had come from, and Yaz had the time to dig her nails into her palms and bite her lip to regain control of herself before her body completely let her down. 

Little did she know that the Doctor was also using that time to gather back her emotions which had been threatening to explode like the fireworks.

“Do you want to look in a mirror?” she asked, about to get up and find one to bring over, but Yaz shook her head.

“We’ll look together when I’ve done yours,” she decided, and the Doctor settled herself back down, putting her hands on her knees as if to stop herself from fidgeting.


	7. More face painting and childishness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter also known as chapter 6 part 2!

Watching the Doctor settle down in preparation for having her own face painted, a realisation hit Yaz that perhaps she could have distracted herself whilst her face was being painted by thinking of what memories she would choose to depict in her patterns. Seeing as she had not, she felt the pressure of having to think on the spot, though at least this was forcing her brain back into some semblance of order. She perused the make up supplies spread out on the floor. 

She could quite easily have chosen exactly the same moments in time as the Doctor had, but she wanted her ideas to be different. She hummed quietly as she cast her mind back and was almost caught out by her traitorous memories offering up visions of the Doctor in a bathroom in Jack Robertson’s hotel, head down a hole and a very different part of her on display to Yaz, followed by the Doctor grabbing her hand to go into the Anti-Zone, followed by the Doctor, completely soaked after being in a 17th century Lancashire river. She squeezed her eyes shut briefly to shake those particular sights from the forefront of her mind.

The Doctor caught her hesitation. “Is it that hard to think of good times with me?” she probed, jesting, and Yaz could only squeak as if her thoughts were being projected on the wall and she’d been caught out. With a little effort she thought of a more respectable memory and began to paint a complex spiral design on one of the Doctor’s cheeks.

“This pattern is in honour of you explaining the anti-matter drive when we were on Tsuranga,” she explained, trying not to focus on how she was now touching the Doctor’s face, feeling the softness of her skin under her fingers. She was quite sure the sound of her heart pounding in her chest must have been loud enough to be heard in the next flat along. Surely the Doctor could catch it with her excellent hearing? She needn’t have worried, however, seeing as the Doctor was currently engaged in her own inner skirmish with herself. 

“I do love an anti-matter drive,” the Doctor sighed, glad for something to think about that wasn’t the face currently hovering so close to her, or the heady feeling of Yaz’s fingers touching her cheek. She had never forgiven herself for unwittingly putting her new friends in harms way with the sonic mine and the resulting escapade with the P’ting, but the point which stuck out most clearly to her was pressing Yaz back against the wall to protect her from the dangerous creature. Why was that the prevailing memory sticking in her head right now?

Deciding that working faster rather than slower would be the best way to get through the current situation, Yaz swapped colours and cheeks and began a pattern of tiny dots and circles, noticing the natural marks on the Doctor’s skin, a freckle here and there, exhilarating her with the discovery of the tiniest ones not visible at a normal distance, feeling like she knew something about the Doctor that others would not. 

“This one is in memory of you having your hands decorated the night before my Nani’s wedding in the Punjab in 1947.” This memory was one Yaz held precious for many reasons, most obviously because of the insight it had given her into her Nani’s early life and the difficulties she had gone through. There were other images from that time seared into her brain, however: the Doctor with a flower in her hair; the Doctor immersed in the science of analysing the strange substance she had found; the Doctor illuminated by the soft, golden glow of the evening lamplight having her hands painted.

“That was the best thing ever!” The Doctor reminisced, remembering that very moment herself, how much she had enjoyed being with just the women, her hands being decorated by the kind, calloused hands of Umbreen’s mother, Yaz sitting opposite her in the dim light, her eyes shining.

“What, better than having your face painted while you’re locked down in 21st Century Sheffield, you mean?” Yaz chuckled. They may have travelled halfway across the universe and faced off with all manner of bizarre and dangerous aliens, but their current predicament probably counted amongst the most incongruous of adventures Yaz had experienced. 

The Doctor looked down at the ground for a moment, battling internally with herself before coming to a decision. The memory of how Yaz faced the truth behind her grandmother’s first marriage with such honour and dignity caused an overwhelming desire to just be honest for once. She looked back up at the young woman sitting in front of her. 

“Yaz,” she said, taking hold of her wrists and holding them gently. “This may not have been something I’d ever imagine doing, but being trapped in a flat with you is turning out to be considerably more amazing than I could have hoped,” 

The blush that crept across Yaz’s face, under the swirling patterns painted by the Doctor, was accompanied by a shy smile, neither of which Yaz could have stopped if she’d wanted to. The sight made the Doctor’s hearts swell. “And having my face painted? I love it.” And there her courage gave out and she veered onto a different course. “Can we go and look in the mirror yet?”

“Come on then,” Yaz answered and they rushed together like school children to the mirror in the bathroom. Side by side, shoulder to shoulder, they each examined the work the other had done on their faces, and Yaz burst into laughter. It may have felt quite delicious having her face painted by the Doctor, but the resulting squiggles were definitely not as delicate as they had felt, in fact looking a little more like a small child had been let loose with a make up bag (which, she mused, was not really so far from the truth in some ways!) 

The Doctor, meanwhile, was studying the considerably more refined and intricate designs Yaz had gifted her with on her cheeks and was spellbound by their appearance. 

“Yaz, these are beautiful!” She gasped. 

“I know,” the other woman replied, “And I end up looking like a clown!” 

“I’ll have you know I got a bronze certificate for face painting last time I visited Stanthia,” 

“Yeah yeah!” Yaz giggled. “But there is something I forgot on yours,” she added, suddenly earnest, and the Doctor turned to her with her serious face on.

Yaz held up a tube of bright red lipstick. “Your red nose!” she proclaimed and lunged at the Doctor, attempting to use the element of surprise to try and draw on her nose. But the Doctor was quicker and managed to intercept the lipstick and grab it out of Yaz’s hands. 

“Oh no you don’t!” she exclaimed. “But you definitely need one yourself to go with your clown face!” 

Yaz yelped and raced from the bathroom, the Doctor hot on her heels, lipstick in hand ready to make its mark. 

“You know, a bright red nose would really suit you,” the Doctor panted through giggles.

“Speak for yourself! I’ve already got more stuff on my face than you have, it’s not fair!” Yaz threw back in mirth, trying to keep furniture between herself and her comedy foe.

“A little more wouldn’t make any difference then, would it?” was the Doctor’s snickering response. 

Yaz had made it into her parents’ bedroom but realised in horror she had made a rookie error. The bed was between her and the Doctor, but there was no escape, no way out. It was a dead end. The Doctor had also clocked this fact and started advancing round the end of the bed knowing Yaz was trapped. Trying to formulate a plan through the laughter neither of them could supress, Yaz looked around and just as the Doctor came within reaching distance, she leapt onto the bed, grabbed a pillow and used it to whack the lipstick out of the Doctor’s hand.

The Doctor gasped in astonishment, mouth open in faux incredulity, “I can’t believe you would stoop to such dirty tactics!” she snorted.

“I can’t believe you didn’t bother to make the bed!” Yaz returned cheekily. The Doctor resolutely grabbed her own pillow and swung it mercilessly back at the young woman standing on the bed. 

Yaz, however, had grown up with a sister and dodged the pillow with ease, taking a retaliatory swing which landed satisfyingly on the Doctor’s shoulder.

“Unfair height advantage!” the blonde shouted and leapt onto the bed herself, but not before Yaz got another swing in – a gentler one this time – to catch her on the side of the head, sending her hair into disarray.

The Doctor howled with laughter and took revenge with a mighty sweep of her pillow, but again, Yaz anticipated her move and had jumped off the bed and disappeared out of the door into the hallway before the fluffy weapon could strike home.

“I’m too fast for you, you’ll never win!” she called back as the Doctor chased after her, then squealed as the Doctor’s pillow was swung again, this time nearly finding its target. The Doctor was fast, too, and determined not to lose.

“Don’t underestimate me,” she called back. “I was on the pillow fighting team at the Academy!” They had made it to the living room and Yaz threw in a quick swipe, catching the Doctor on the side of the head again. 

“You were not!” she laughed in disbelief.

The Doctor tried to clear her hair from her eyes in order not to miss another attack. “No, I wasn’t,” she admitted. “But I would have been if we’d had one!”

Their laughter echoed through the flat as they continued to twirl, whirl and wave their respective pillows at each other, averting and deflecting blows from the other person and occasionally taking soft thumps. The effort of running, swinging pillows and laughing left both women gasping for air. 

Trying to buy precious seconds to catch her breath, Yaz backed away as the Doctor approached her with an expression of evil delight on her face, feeling she had finally gotten the upper hand, when Yaz suddenly stumbled on something. They both looked down and realised she was standing amidst the detritus from the laminating debacle the night before, something which they’d both managed to successfully avoid talking or thinking about up until that point.

They looked at each other in fear, wondering what the other might say, and beats passed, until they both, without warning, collapsed into convulsions of laughter, rendered completely incapacitated by the gales of irrepressible hilarity racking their bodies. Yaz leaned on the table to support herself as she gasped in breaths between the paroxysms of fresh outbursts, and the Doctor was bent double, clutching her stomach, tears falling down her cheeks leaving streaks in the patterns there.

When they finally wiped the tears from their eyes and took deep breaths to regain their composure, the Doctor leaned down to pick something up and offer it to Yaz as she had done the night before. 

“I really did make these flowers for you,” she confessed.


	8. Facetime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Graham and Ryan start to suspect something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a little shorter as I needed to split it off from what comes after.

Having received the laminated flowers with gratitude this time around, and stuck them on the fridge door, Yaz helped the Doctor clear up the rest of the laminated delights in companionable silence. The morning’s events had exhausted both of them, and when the room was tidy once more, they both fell onto the sofa. 

“You know, something else that is traditional on Flensday is to spend time with loved ones. Maybe we could do the facing thing with Graham and Ryan on your phone?” They were both staring at the ceiling as the Doctor spoke, both of them with their feet up on the coffee table. 

“The facing thing? You mean face time?” teased yaz, looking over at her friend.

The Doctor sat up and pouted back. “Yaz, you do remember my serious tech skillz - with a z - when I used biotracking fused to holoprojection to create a solid hologram of Lin when she was being controlled by the Dalek on New Year’s Day? And you expect me to remember the name of some silly earth video thing? I am so offended!” The Doctor folded her arms and turned her back to Yaz, who just sniggered at the mock offence.

“I’ll call them, then, shall I?” she said, giving the Doctor’s back a gentle nudge and sitting up to use her phone. The Doctor spun round excitedly and squeezed up as close to Yaz as she could see the screen. Once everything was set up, Graham’s face blinked into view.

“Ryan! Ryan! Get down here now! It’s the Doc and Yaz!” he bellowed off to the side, then waved. “How are you both doing? Are you OK?”

“Hi Graham, we’re fine, thank you, how are you both doing?” Yaz asked back. Graham’s face came very close to the camera and he scrunched his eyes up as if looking at something closely. 

“Erm, not to sound disrespectful or anything, but what’s going on with your faces?” Ryan’s head suddenly appeared next to Graham’s and he pointed at the camera and laughed.

“Oh my days, Yaz, what have you done to your faces? That is well funny!”

Yaz had completely forgotten the face paint and began to stutter, not knowing what to say. The Doctor chimed in.

“It’s Flensday,” she stated as if that should explain everything. 

“It’s what?” Graham looked just as baffled.

“Flensday!” The Doctor repeated cheerfully. “Happy Flensday!” and she gave them both two thumbs up.

Yaz felt she had better take over explaining duties. “Apparently it’s a celebration on some other planet…”

“Stanthia,” the Doctor interjected shoving her face in front of the phone. 

“… and one of the things they do is paint their faces to represent memories,” she finished after pushing the Doctor back.

“What on earth memories are yours supposed to represent?” Graham asked incredulously.

“Yeah, did you go to some circus somewhere and watch a load of clowns?” Ryan clearly wanted to torture Yaz, who looked pointedly at the Doctor as she replied.

“No. SOMEONE thought these patterns represented actual memories of times we spent together.”

“They do!” The Doctor defended herself. “This part here,” she prodded a particular swirl, “looks exactly like the things I got painted on my hands, and this…” she was about to prod Yaz’s face again, but Yaz grabbed her hand first and there followed a brief giggling struggle between them as the Doctor tried to free her hands to poke Yaz’s face again, and Yaz tried to keep hold of them to prevent any more poking. 

Graham and Ryan looked at one another suspiciously. Ryan bumped his grandfather with his shoulder as if to tell him it was his responsibility to break this up. Graham coughed loudly and unsubtly, causing the Doctor and Yaz to freeze and look at the phone on Yaz’s lap, still holding each other’s hands in mid struggle. As if they suddenly realised what they were doing, they abruptly let go and sat up straight in front of the phone. 

Graham and Ryan were simply staring at the camera, smirking.

“What?” Yaz asked. “What? Ryan? What?” Ryan just shook his head with a smile.

“Oh nothing, nothing at all,” he said in a tone of voice which suggested there really was something and he was absolutely not going to let Yaz in on it under any circumstances. 

“You two keeping busy then?” Graham appeared to be trying not to laugh, and Ryan had his hand over his mouth, his eyes dancing.

“Yes, we had spaghetti and jam for breakfast, and we just had a pillow fight.” The Doctor was truly oblivious to the fact that the boys had cottoned on to something.

“Pillow fight?” Graham was struggling to keep his composure and Ryan’s shoulders were shaking gently, his hand still over his mouth. Yaz felt that they were probably misunderstanding things and attempted to make light of the situation.

“Oh, you know how it is when us girls get together,” she tried, hoping they would put it all down to a girl’s night in (even if it was during the day, and not that Yaz had ever experienced a girl’s night in).

“No, how is it?” Ryan managed to squeak out from between his fingers. His eyes were damp and Graham was losing in his fight to keep a straight face.

“We were just, you know, having a laugh.” Yaz plastered what she hoped was an innocent smile on her face, but there was a slight hint of desperation in both her eyes and her voice.

“Am I missing something?” the Doctor asked in genuine confusion, looking from Yaz to the phone and back again. 

Graham had apparently succeeded in his battle to stifle his laughter and decided it was time to change the subject.

“No, you’re OK, Doc. Ryan’s been spending most of his time making more videos, and I have been doing a lot of housework. House has never been so clean, apart from his room,” he jabbed a thumb in Ryan’s direction, which stopped the younger man’s amusement dead.

“My room is clean!” he objected. “And it’s not like there’s much else to do, can’t go and see me mates, can’t go down the pub, can’t have a game of basketball,” 

“Awww diddums,” Graham mocked. “At least you ain’t working in a hospital right now. Imagine what your Nan would be doing,”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Ryan admitted.

The fam continued to chat for a while longer, until Yaz got a text from Sonya asking if she’d phone their parents, so they said their goodbyes and ended the conversation. 

“Can we facetime your parents as well?” asked the Doctor hopefully. “That was fun!”

“I don’t think my parents are ready for that level of unpredictability,” Yaz responded with a wry smile.

“Right, well in that case I shall go and make a start on the picnic feast!” she jumped up from the sofa and Yaz waved her hands in concern.

“Erm, feast? Picnic? We can’t leave the flat, how can we have a picnic?” 

“On the floor!” The Doctor pointed at the rug where they had sat for the face painting. “It’s fine, you speak to your family, I’ll prepare the food. Then it will be ready for later on when we get hungry.”

Yaz had a sinking feeling about letting the Doctor loose unsupervised in the kitchen, but figured she had little choice and nodded her assent, turning back to her phone. She kept her back to the kitchen as she spoke to her parents, trying not to be alarmed at the amount of banging and crashing, which at one point was so loud her parents heard it and Yaz was forced to explain to her mum that the Doctor was preparing lunch and she was sure all would be fine. Also that no plates had been broken, though she thought it best not to mention to her dad the fate that had befallen his orchid.


	9. Flensday Olympics

About half an hour later, when Yaz had finished her call to her parents, she turned around expecting to see utter chaos behind her, but in fact the Doctor had packed all the food she had prepared into boxes and cleaned up any mess she had made in the kicthen. She was meticulously numbering the boxes and putting them in order as Yaz strolled up to find out what had been happening. She was about to open one of the boxes when the Doctor stopped her and wagged a finger under her nose. 

“Not until picnic time, no peeking!” She admonished with a lop-sided smile. 

“OK, keep your hair on,” Yaz chuckled, prompting the Doctor to reflexively touch her hair in concern. “No, I mean… never mind! What’s next on the Flensday timetable?” she inquired, but the Doctor said nothing, and held the pen she was using aloft as she sidestepped over to the score board. 

“Well first of all, do I get points for face painting and spending time with our friends?” she asked hopefully. Yaz sighed. This was not going well for her, but she nodded her head in resignation and the Doctor added to her own score.

“4:1 to me, Yaz, not looking good for you,” Yaz poked her tongue out.

“Well I have an idea for something we could do,” she responded primly. “It might not be a traditional Flensday activity, but it could be our own tradition.”

“I like the idea of having our own traditions. Hit me!” 

“I am really missing being able to get out and exercise. So maybe we could have, like, I don’t know, our own mini Olympics?” Yaz was sure the Doctor would think this idea was very silly. “We could make up our own sports that we could do in the flat. I’m sorry, it’s a bad idea. It’s not very Flensday.” 

“Don’t you dare say that, Yaz,” the Doctor reprimanded kindly, “I think that’s a brilliant idea, and it’s totally in the spirit of Flensday!” she looked thoughtful for a moment. “Do I get gold medals when I win things?” 

“Oh, so you think you’re going to win, do you?” Yaz perked up at the Doctor’s positive response. 

“Don’t think I am gonna take it easy on you, Khan,” the Doctor gave Yaz an intense expression which just made the other woman laugh.

“We’ll see! How about you get a point on the score board for every win?”

“Bring it on!” 

“The first sport is bowling,” Yaz announced. She pulled a tomato out of the fridge and a packet of custard creams from a high cupboard, the sight of which made the Doctor’s mouth drop open as she stared at it with eyes as round as saucers.

“I didn’t know you had custard creams!” she whined.

“I was saving them for a moment of need,” Yaz explained. “I think we have our moment of need!” She set up an arrangement of ten biscuits standing on their end near the front door, then retreated to the other end of the short hallway, offering the Doctor the tomato.

“You can go first – 3 rounds. Round 1!”

The Doctor took the tomato and crouched down, eyeballing the distance to the biscuits and weighing the tomato in her hand. She looked as if she were performing complex internal calculations, and then she stood, swung her arm back, stepped forward and rolled the tomato down the hall.

Of course, tomatoes not being perfectly spherical, it rolled entirely off course and came to a standstill upon crashing into the skirting board, much to the Doctor’s dismay.

“My turn!” chirped Yaz in delight.

“But it’s not fair! It’s not a sphere, it doesn’t roll straight, I forgot to take into account the stalk on the top…”

“Tough luck!” Yaz teased and with slight abandon rolled the tomato herself. The Doctor was even more vocal when it actually managed to knock down a couple of peripheral custard creams and Yaz clapped in celebration.

“You had an advantage over me! You’d already seen how it rolls!”

“Two points to me!” Yaz wiggled two fingers under the Doctor’s nose to annoy her even further, prompting her to stomp down the hallway to retrieve the tomato and set the biscuits upright again.

Her face became steely as she returned ready to take her second roll, and this time the tomato made a graceful arc straight into the middle of the biscuits, knocking seven of the ten down. 

“Yesssss!” she cried, pumping her fist in the air in jubilation. “Beat that, PC Khan!” 

Yaz’s second turn knocked down five biscuits, leaving them level pegging in the final round. The Doctor took careful aim and released the tomato on its final roll, first whooping as it held a promising-looking straight line, her delight turning to dismay as it veered wildly away at the last minute, finishing up several feet away around the corner. 

“No!” she wailed, dejected. Yaz waggled her eyebrows at her as she went to pick up the tomato and readied herself for a big finish. She stood in quiet but intense concentration, ready to roll the tomato as the Doctor became more and more agitated behind her. Yaz zoned out the excuses she kept vocalising and rolled the tomato. 

The Doctor fell silent as they watched it roll on a wobbly course down the hallway. It was heading straight for the middle of the biscuits until about halfway down when it began to angle towards the left, causing the Doctor to laugh, but Yaz kept her eyes on its progress to the end, where it gently bumped just one biscuit, causing it to topple. Yaz cheered. The Doctor sulked. 

“It was a defective tomato,” she grumbled, but Yaz swaggered over to the score board and added a point for herself. “I’m going to catch you up,” she warned with wink and a gleam in her eyes. 

“Come on then, what’s the next sport?” the Doctor was keen to move on from her defeat and prove herself the ultimate victor. She was still two points ahead of Yaz on the score board, and she was sure she’d be able to increase that with enough luck.

“The next sport…” Yaz paused to think for a moment and the Doctor took the opportunity to throw in an idea of her own.

“Sofa vaulting!” 

“No!” Yaz laughed. “It’s the relay race!”

“Go on, I am intrigued how this works with only one person on each team,” the Doctor folded her arms. 

“There are 4 pillows on mum and dad’s bed,” Yaz began.

“Because we put them back after the pillow fight this morning,” the Doctor interjected, causing Yaz to splutter slightly at the memory before regaining her self-control.

“You start at the sofa and run to bring the pillows back one at a time. The fastest person to get all 4 is the winner.”

“This one is mine!” the Doctor stated with certainty and got ready to run. Yaz brought up the stopwatch on her phone.

“On your marks, get set, go!” and the Doctor was off like a bolt of lightning. Yaz was actually impressed with the speed at which she retrieved the pillows. After the third pillow, she could hear the Doctor’s panting breaths but she wasn’t relenting at all in her pace, and when she finally crashed onto the sofa with the last pillow, Yaz showed her the time, more than a little impressed. 

“I am good at running.” The Doctor wheezed. “S’my speciality.” 

Yaz wasn’t going to let her win without a fight, though, and piled the four pillows on top of her. “Go and put them back, you’ve got to time me now.”

Once the pillows had been returned and the Doctor had her finger poised over the phone ready to begin the stopwatch, Yaz took off down the corridor and grabbed the first pillow. As she ran backwards and forwards she was absolutely sure she couldn’t possibly go any faster, though her legs soon began to burn, a result of the inactivity of a couple of days stuck in the flat. She gave a final push with the last pillow and hurled herself onto the sofa, looking instantly up at the Doctor, wanting to know if her efforts had succeeded. 

It was plainly clear, however, from the Doctor’s response, who had won. The blonde threw her arms up in the air jubilantly and bowed to an invisible crowd. Yaz covered her face with her hands as the Doctor victoriously gave herself another point on the score board.

“You are a terrible loser,” Yaz puffed, “But you are also a fairly insufferable winner!”

The Doctor grabbed her hands and pulled her to her feet, ignoring the groans of protest. 

“Come on, I need more points to beat you by an even bigger margin,” she said with childish glee. 

“Right, well I am taking you down with the next sport,” Yaz jabbed a finger at the Doctor in emphasis. “Balance. Who can balance on one leg the longest.” The Doctor’s expression of supreme confidence wavered slightly. “AND,” Yaz continued, “The other person has to balance things on them whilst they are stood on one leg. If you drop anything or fall or put your other foot down, you lose.”

The Doctor looked uncertain. Yaz knew this would be a real test for a someone who struggled to ever be still (apart from that morning in front of the window, her brain reminded her, apparently trying to sabotage her chances of winning).

The Doctor stood in front of the sofa and took a few test balances on one foot, wobbling very quickly every time. 

“Ready…” Yaz began. 

“No, no, no, wait…” the Doctor tried to buy herself more preparation time.

“Steady….”

“No hang on a moment…”

“Go!”

The Doctor lifted up one foot and stretched her arms out to the sides to help herself balance, her face frowning in an expression of pure focus. 

Yaz gave her a moment to settle into the balance, then picked up a small book from the bookcase and balanced it carefully on top of the Doctor’s head. She tried not to giggle at the Doctor diligently ignoring her, then added a small ornament on top of her right arm. The Doctor’s forehead creased further in concentration, but she held her balance. Yaz began adding various other small items to the Doctor’s arms, head and shoulders. She desperately wanted to laugh out loud, but a sense of fairness told her that wouldn’t be very sporting, so she held it in and was just draping a tea towel over one of the Doctor’s hands when the wobble began. The dark-haired woman kept her eyes on the quivering Doctor as she grabbed a banana from the fruit bowl on the table and was about to add it when the Doctor lurched to the side and fell in a heap of arms, legs and the selection of small items she’d had balanced on her. 

“How long?” she asked immediately.

“Two minutes and twelve seconds.” Yaz replied, showing her the phone. The hmpf the Doctor gave in response suggested she wasn’t happy with this, giving Yaz hope that she’d be the winner in this particular game. She tidied off the carpet and gave the Doctor her phone ready to time her effort, then cleared her mind, closed her eyes and took on a pose reminiscent of a yoga tree position, one leg bent, the foot resting on the inside of the other leg. She figured she’d better put her arms out to the side as the Doctor had, or there would be limited places to balance anything.

With Yaz’s eyes closed, the Doctor felt able to look her friend over, taking in the calm expression on her face, the subtle muscle definition in the exposed arms stretched out to the sides, the taut muscles in her legs visible through the leggings she was wearing. Yaz made it look effortless and the Doctor found herself just drinking in the sight, her cheeks warming, a strange flutter in her stomach. She hadn’t even realised what she was doing until Yaz cracked open one eye and muttered, “Aren’t you going to balance anything on me?” making the Doctor check herself. 

Looking around the room, she selected a small clay model of a mouse, which looked as if it had been made by either Yaz or her sister when small, the sort of embarrassing piece of childhood art that parents love to hang onto. She placed it delicately on Yaz’s left shoulder, her fingers brushing over the soft skin uncovered by the vest top Yaz was wearing. If Yaz felt it, she gave no reaction, but to the Doctor, it felt as if she had received a tiny shock of electricity at the contact and she stepped back in surprise. She blinked twice, then started lining up a selection of small items along one of Yaz’s arms, having to take the time to ensure each thing was steady, noticing every tiny twitch of the muscles. Having gone all the way along one arm, she moved to the other, until both arms were supporting a line of random objects collected from around the room, and Yaz was showing no sign of wobbling. 

The Doctor was finding it increasingly challenging, however, to prevent her eyes from roaming all over Yaz’s body, the gentle rise and fall of her chest in slow breaths proving to be most distracting. Yaz usually tended to favour clothing that covered more rather than less, and her choice of top and leggings today, whilst obviously having been selected for comfort, was causing unexpected sensations within the Doctor. She decided maybe she should go behind her instead, picking up a scarf that belonged to Najia and walking around her friend. 

The sight from the back was no less diverting, however, particularly the flexed muscles in her shoulders and back noticeable around the edge of her top. With hands trembling ever so slightly, the Doctor lifted the braid of dark hair, revealing the back of Yaz’s neck, with wisps of hair that had not been caught up in the plait, intending to drape the scarf. Unable to resist her actions, the Doctor was helpless to prevent her fingers from touching Yaz, an audible inhale of breath escaping her lips as she did so. 

The action elicited a gasp from Yaz, who wobbled and put her other foot down on the ground, the objects all falling from her arms as she spun round to accuse the Doctor.

“You cheated! You tickled me!” though her annoyance evaporated when she saw the Doctor frozen with her fingers still stretched out in front, her face distinctly pinker than normal and a look Yaz could not decipher on her face. She glanced at the phone and then shouted in triumph. “Ha! I won anyway!” 

Taking a shaky breath, the Doctor spurred herself into mobility. “I… I’ll add the point,” she stammered, heading away. 

She took a moment, standing alone at the score board, the distance between herself and Yaz giving her the time to regather herself. 

What on earth had just happened?


	10. Food for Thought

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final challenge between Jodie and Mandip may be one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in my entire life. I love those two with all my heart.
> 
> Also, there’s a nod somewhere in here to one of my very favourite fics, the amazing To the ends of the earth (would you follow me) by freefallvertigo. I am sure you’re all reading that one too and loving it as much as I do.

Yaz had excused herself to use the bathroom and the Doctor utilised the opportunity to have some stern words with herself.

You do see what’s going on here, don’t you, Doctor?  
I have no idea what you are talking about, Doctor.  
You absolutely do, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.   
Look, there’s nothing going on. I’m just going a little stir crazy cooped up in a flat for several days.  
That sort of sensible-sounding explanation might work on the others, but you’re me, and I know exactly what you are trying to hide.  
I’m not hiding anything!  
OK, maybe ‘hide’ isn’t quite the right word.   
Thank you.  
Deny is probably better.  
What? I don’t think so!  
Struck a nerve?  
You are delusional.  
Say what you like, but I am not the one denying what is right in front of their eyes.   
Well technically you ARE the one, seeing as you are me…  
Semantics! You know what I mean.  
I don’t want to have this conversation.   
You’re going to end up in trouble, you know.   
That’s precisely why I am trying to deny it.  
Ah, so you ARE denying it!!  
Damn. That’s not what I meant.  
Too late. 

Yaz, returning from the bathroom, noticed the slightly cross expression on the Doctor’s face, and began to worry that the Time Lord’s competitive nature would mean she couldn’t properly enjoy the activities she’d thought up. Perhaps this was all going to be a complete disaster, and it would be entirely her fault.

“Yaz! My friend, pal, mate, good buddy!” You’re over-doing it, said the internal Doctor. “My old buckaroo,” What? Just shut up! Yaz had frozen mid journey back to the sofa and was looking at her as if she had grown three extra arms. Damage control was needed. “Did you have a good time in the bathroom?” Oh for goodness sake, just shut up and let me take over! “We’re… I’m having a great time. Are there any more sports?” See? That’s how it’s done.

“I think just one more.” Yaz relaxed and went to the kitchen, pulling a packet out of one of the cupboards. She plonked it down on the coffee table, sitting down next to the Doctor.

“Who can eat the most marshmallows in one minute! Double points for the winner!” 

“You’re prepared to let me take that big of a lead, are you?” The Doctor’s ambition allowed her to push down the feelings inside that had been threatening dangerously to surface. Let’s just win the competition, she thought to herself. Worry about everything else later.

“We’ll see,” Yaz sang back cheerfully. She knew of the Doctor’s love of sweet treats, but she had the advantage of having played this game with Sonya once before, and knew the strategies that would give her an edge. Plus there was absolutely no way at all she was going to let the Doctor get a further two points ahead of her.

She lined up ten marshmallows in front of each of them on the coffee table. The Doctor undid the clasp at the top of her trousers in preparation, making Yaz laugh out loud.

“You’re really serious about winning this,” she said.

“Deadly. Get the timer ready!” 

Yaz set her phone down between them on the table, finger hovering over the start button.

“Three… two… one… GO!”

The Doctor’s approach was to pull pieces off each marshmallow and swallow a small bits at a time. Which might have been a winning tactic had she not been up against Yaz, whose determination to win two points and draw level with the Doctor saw her stuff an entire marshmallow in her mouth at a time, risking potential choking by swallowing before it was even properly chewed. 

The timer ticked down and the tension in the room built. Yaz was completely focused on the marshmallows. The Doctor’s need to beat her opponent meant she kept sneaking glances sideways to see how they were comparing. 

It was neck and neck, 3 marshmallows each, as the timer hit ten seconds. The Doctor picked up two marshmallows in panic and stuffed them in her mouth, holding her nose in an attempt to help force them down. Yaz maintained her focus, however, and continued chewing through one at a time, and then the phone dinged, telling them a minute was up. They both had 5 marshmallows remaining on the table, and Yaz looked at the Doctor, prepared to accept a tie. What she saw, however, sealed the Doctor’s fate as the loser. Her cheeks were stuffed like a hamster, and one marshmallow fell out from between her lips. She looked down at it as if it had betrayed her, and Yaz leapt up, waving her arms in the air and cheering.

“I won! I won! Two points to me, and we’re even!” She ran to the score board to add her points on and the Doctor was forced to admit defeat with as much grace as she could muster when her mouth was still full of marshmallow.

She spat them into her hands and regarded them with disappointment. 

“I am never eating marshmallow again,” she said wistfully.

“No, I know what you mean,” Yaz agreed. “But I could do with some real food that isn’t full of sugar.”

“Oh, picnic!” The Doctor sprang into action, spreading one of the blankets from the sofa out on the floor and rushing to put down all the boxes of food she had prepared earlier. Yaz grabbed a couple of plates and some cutlery and they settled down on the blanket. She wasn’t sure what to expect from the woman who had eaten pizza with banana on it the night before, but had also managed to make spaghetti and jam quite tasty for breakfast. 

The Doctor opened box number 1 and presented it to Yaz.

“They eat food for each colour of the rainbow,” she said. “So we are starting with a sort of tomato-ey salad. Though after my bowling experience, I am not sure I want to eat a tomato.” She stared accusingly into the box.

Yaz took a little onto her plate and tried it. She had no idea what else the Doctor had put with the tomato, but it certainly tasted good, and she nodded her head in appreciation. 

And so the picnic progressed, with the tomato salad being followed by some sort of orange-coloured sweet and sour chicken, crunchy fried strips of golden potato and a selection of fresh, chopped green veggies including broccoli and peas which had been cooked in a very moreish sauce.

“Blue, indigo and violet were a bit of a struggle on this planet,” the Doctor explained, before she opened the final box. “On Stanthia they have these amazing blue and purple coloured pastry things, but I had to get a bit creative.”

She opened the box to reveal two small cakes topped with icing flowers coloured in a swirl of blues and purples. 

“They’re amazing, especially considering your face painting efforts!” Yaz said, impressed that this feast had been rustled up from her family’s kitchen. She made a mental note to ask for some recipes once the lockdown was over, though she rather suspected the Doctor was not a recipe sort of person and instead took a more imaginative approach to food preparation. But regardless, this feast had been a resounding success and they munched happily on the cakes as the view from the windows showed the sun beginning to set over the city. 

Yaz was gazing out at the rich colours painting the sky, unaware that the Doctor was instead gazing at Yaz - the colours reflecting in her eyes as the fireworks had on New Year’s Eve, the dimming golden light reminiscent of the lamplight that evening in the Punjab. Just as earlier, when she had found herself unable to resist touching those wisps of hair on the nape of Yaz’s neck, she reached out to tuck a stray tendril behind the younger woman’s ear. There was nothing on this planet or any other that could have stopped her hand from seeking this contact, and this time, Yaz just turned silently to find herself looking directly into the Doctor’s eyes. They were frozen for a breathless moment, lost in each other’s eyes.

Yaz felt as if her heart was going to explode out of her chest. Why had the Doctor touched her? Why was her stomach doing somersaults and her skin on fire? How could she ever escape from those ancient eyes which were surely looking directly into her very heart?

She didn’t need to worry about the final point, because the Doctor suddenly cast her eyes downwards and pulled back her hand. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered to the floor, rapidly gathering up the boxes littered about and hurrying away to the kitchen. 

Yaz was left looking at the empty space where the Doctor had been sitting, struggling to process what had just occurred. She was filled with the same turmoil that she had experienced after the laminator incident, and as before, rather than try and understand what it meant, made the decision to blame it on the intensity of being stuck inside for so long after literally roaming the universe. There was definitely something inside her trying desperately to get her to see that this was a foolish response. But, well, they had managed to carry on with things just fine, despite the embarrassment they’d both felt. This would be no different. 

She stood, taking the plates to wash in the sink, smiling brightly at the Doctor who was stacking the boxes of leftover food with far more care than was needed in the fridge. As she caught the Doctor’s eye, she felt the fire once more, and looked quickly at the washing up in the sink before the panic could overtake her again. 

The Doctor, for her part, was relieved at Yaz’s friendly smile, hoping this meant that she hadn’t sensed anything more in the touch. Though how it could be explained as just the action of a friend was a little beyond her at the moment. She refused to engage with the voice practically yelling at her inside her head, knowing full well what she ought to be saying to herself and yet still not allowing it. She had to break the silence, though – the longer this went on, the more awkward things would get. She had one trick for the day left up her sleeve.

“There is one final Flensday tradition to go,” she announced when Yaz had finished the washing up. “Music! In the evening, all the musicians get together to play the Flensday songs and everyone sings the night away.”

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Yaz asked, a genuine smile growing on her lips.

“Karaoke!” they announced together. The Doctor gave an excited thumbs up and Yaz fired up her dad’s computer. You Tube would have plenty of karaoke videos and this seemed a safe and fun way to pass the evening. A sudden thought hit her and she dug around in her dad’s basket of random wires and now-unused electrical devices (kept “in case they were ever needed”) under the desk and gave cry of success when her hands fell upon the item they were seeking. She held it up for the Doctor to see: a microphone. 

“It doesn’t work any more,” she confessed, “But we can still use it as a prop.” The Doctor grabbed it in glee.

“It’s perfect!” she stated with satisfaction, adding, “I am sure your neighbours will be glad it doesn’t actually work!”

“That’s true. So what song do you want to start with?” Yaz asked, and the Doctor ushered her aside to take her place at the computer. Then followed five full minutes of her searching for songs, umming and erring over them, getting cross that the biggest hits from various other galaxies were not available (“But it was number one on twenty different planets, how can it possibly not be on You Tube?”) before finally proclaiming she had found an excellent song that would bring the house down. 

Yaz brought a standard lamp out from the corner of the room to illuminate the rug, which had been designated as the “stage”, and turned off the rest of the lights. She tucked her feet under her on the sofa and waited in anticipation for the Doctor’s choice of opening song. 

Trumpets. And then the beat started. And as the lyrics began, with the Doctor bouncing around on the “stage”, Yaz looked in disbelief at the computer screen: My Humps by the Black Eyed Peas? The Doctor rapidly ground to a halt, noticing the expression of shock and hilarity combined on Yaz’s face.

“No?” she asked with raised eyebrows. Yaz had no words, so the Doctor returned to the computer to search again, muttering to herself. “I thought it was quite lively, myself. Aha!” 

She jumped up again and started the new song. Yaz didn’t have the heart to show any kind of reaction again, but her face was on fire and she absolutely could not look at the Doctor’s face as she sang her way through Britney Spears’ If U Seek Amy. She attempted an enthusiastic applause at the end, and without meeting the Doctor’s eyes, headed to the computer herself to pick a song. 

She dithered over what might be a good one to start with, eventually settling on Fireflies by Owl City, figuring it was fun to sing if nothing else.

She began a lot more tentatively than the Doctor had, but then the Doctor had the benefit of having no inhibitions. However, as the song progressed she became more confident and just enjoyed herself singing a song she liked. 

Her audience was spellbound. Who knew that Yaz had been hiding this musical talent? The Doctor was completely swept away by the song and the delightful voice of her friend, and by the time Yaz finished, she leapt to her feet, clapping her hands vigorously. 

“Yaz, that was amazing!” she gushed, making Yaz smile self-consciously as she handed the microphone over. The Doctor knew she had to up her game for her next song. Yaz was really good at this, and the Doctor was desperate to show that she could do just as well. Inspiration struck and she brought up a new song on the computer.

She struck a pose on the rug and the music began: 

“Yo, I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want…”

Yaz watched from the sofa with tears of laughter in her eyes as the Doctor gave her very best rendition of Wannabe, performed with total Nineties attitude and conviction. Yaz wanted to remember this moment forever, because she knew that if, in the future, she ever felt down, the memory of the Doctor performing an iconic Spice Girls song was going to make her laugh, no matter what. 

“If you wanna be my lover!” the Doctor sang the last line, and Yaz, through her laughter, was sure she saw the Doctor wink at her as she finished, causing a little flip in her heart.

“Smashed it!” she announced, collapsing on the sofa and dramatically dropping the mic in between herself and Yaz, who was wondering if she could find a song with a message for the Doctor in it. She sat at the computer tapping her fingers, feeling the Doctor’s eyes on her back. Then she typed in some words, started the music and picked up the microphone. 

“I close my eyes and I can see, a world that’s waiting there for me, that I call my own…”

Her voice faltered slightly, but she looked at the Doctor as she sang A Million Dreams, feeling the words spoke what was in her heart. And by the time she got to the chorus, she sang out with courage and sureness. By the second chorus, she felt as if she was singing directly to the Doctor.

“However big, however small, let me be part of it all, share your dreams with me,  
You may be right, you may be wrong, but say that you’ll bring me along,  
To the world you see,  
To the world I close my eyes to see, I close my eyes to see…”

And suddenly the Doctor stood up, threw the microphone onto the sofa and held both of Yaz’s trembling hands in her own, joining in with the final chorus. They sang the words to each other, the music speaking out loud what they had been keeping hidden in their hearts.

As the music faded away, they were left standing together, hands clasped, lost once more in each other’s eyes. The world had disappeared, and the Doctor’s eyes glanced down at the full lips of the woman in front of her, and she moved her head almost imperceptibly closer, Yaz watching, waiting, her heart in her mouth, lips slightly parted…

…when You Tube suddenly began autoplaying the next song, crashing into The Final Countdown. They both whipped their heads around to look at the computer, and the Doctor raced over to stop the music, laughing awkwardly back at Yaz, who didn’t know what to do with herself. The Doctor took a deep breath and knew what she needed to do. 

“Sit down, Yaz, I’ve got one more song,” she instructed, and took her place on the rug.

Yaz did as she was told, and their eyes soon found each other again as the Doctor began to sing. Nothing silly this time, nothing inappropriate, nothing funny, just a pure, clear voice, singing only for Yaz.

“Look at the stars, look how they shine for you, and everything you do, yeah they were all yellow,  
I came along, I wrote a song for you, and everything you do, and it was called Yellow.   
And then I took my turn, oh what a thing to have done, and it was all yellow.  
Your skin, oh yeah your skin and bones,  
Turn into something beautiful,  
You know, you know I love you so…”

At the second chorus, she dropped the microphone and pulled Yaz to her feet, and they faced each other once again holding hands, their eyes unable to look anywhere else, this time the Doctor singing alone. And this time, the Doctor pulled Yaz closer.

“Look at the stars, look how their shine for you, and everything that you do…” 

They were so close, they could each feel the other’s heated breath on their lips.

And this time when the Doctor leaned in, so very slowly, so slow that Yaz thought the universe had slowed down, neither of them heard what You Tube decided to autoplay next, as their lips finally touched and it felt like the world exploded around them.


	11. And everything changed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note the ratings change. Yes, I went there!
> 
> Please skip this chapter if you want to keep things less... steamy!
> 
> This is the most terrifying thing I have written in my entire life – I really hope it’s not too terrible!

The Doctor smiled into Yaz’s lips, unwilling to put any more distance between them. 

“Hi!” she whispered, looking into dark eyes.

Yaz had no words, just stared in wonder at the marvellous woman who had just set her world on fire. 

She freed one hand from the Doctor’s clasp to reach up and tuck a strand of blonde hair behind her ear, as if repaying her for the same gesture she had done just a short time before. But this time everything felt different, and Yaz felt a fervent yearning for more contact. She put her hands on each side of the Doctor’s face to pull her into another kiss. 

The first kiss had been unexpected and breath-taking and incredible and like fireworks. This kiss was deep and needy and full of desire. It was like passion and lust and want. 

The Doctor’s arms wrapped around Yaz, pulling her close, wanting to share the heat that was coursing between them. She felt the muscles she had watched earlier tense under her hands and had a sudden need to touch skin, not clothes, sliding her hands under the top.

Yaz inhaled sharply, breaking the kiss, leaving them both panting slightly, and the Doctor looked at her in concern.

“Is this OK?” she asked.

Yaz was still struggling to find her voice, managing to breathe out a yes.

“Can I take it off?” the Doctor asked further, and Yaz nodded, her brain seeming to be barely capable of stringing two thoughts together at that moment. She was glad the Doctor seemed in control, because she felt anything but – in fact she was worried when she let go of the Doctor’s face that her legs might just give out under her and she’d crash to the floor.

The Doctor, however, was feeling far from in control herself. It was a long time since she’d felt like this, and it was the first time in this body. And at least the previous times had all been in a male body – everything felt so different as a woman. It was both exciting and terrifying. She was currently trying to pull Yaz’s top off, but her hands didn’t quite seem to be doing what her brain wanted them to do. She took a flustered step backwards, sucked in a deep breath and smiled in embarrassment as she blew it out shakily, looking at her feet. 

“I’m sorry,”

“It’s OK,” Yaz smiled back, endeared by the fluster, pulling off the top herself. The Doctor lifted her eyes to look at Yaz, the soft lamplight creating a glowing halo around her, and thought she’d never looked more beautiful. Yaz felt vulnerable in just her bra, until the Doctor gathered her in her arms, pressing her lips into her neck and making Yaz sigh. But she wanted to feel the Doctor’s skin against her own, so she pushed her back, to a squeak of dismay, and whispered, “You too,” indicating her top. 

She pulled it off over her head, mussing her hair, and Yaz felt a surge of desire wash over her at the sight of the Doctor standing in front of her so exposed, a rosy blush across her cheeks and chest and her hair in disarray. She ran her hands over the prominent collarbones, feeling their definition, then trailed her fingers up the Doctor’s neck into her hair, and their lips crashed together once more. 

This time, the sensation of so much skin in contact added fuel to the fire and Yaz moaned into the Doctor’s mouth before opening her eyes and realising they were standing in front of the windows, letting out a laugh.

The Doctor stopped what she was doing and looked at Yaz with her eyebrows raised in question. 

Yaz gestured at the windows, and the other woman’s eyes goggled in realisation.

“Shall we go to my bedroom?” she smirked.

“Good idea,” the Doctor agreed, following Yaz.

Once there, however, they were both hit by sudden nerves. In the living room, it had been spontaneous, unplanned, instinctive. Moving to the bedroom seemed to make it suddenly intimidating, neither sure how to reinitiate things

Without warning, the Doctor suddenly swept Yaz up in her arms in a bridal lift, causing the younger woman to yelp in surprise and grab the Doctor round the shoulders.

“What are you doing?” 

“I’m sorry,” the Doctor grunted in effort. “I always wanted to try this, but it seemed a lot more romantic in my head…” 

Yaz dropped a kiss on the end of her nose.

“You’re so sweet, and so funny!”

The Doctor carefully laid Yaz on the bed, captivated by the sight of her laying there.

“I want to see you…” she murmured. 

Their eyes never left each other as Yaz reached around to unclasp her bra, but the Doctor’s eyes dropped as the item fell away to reveal what lay beneath, her eyes dark with longing. 

Yaz paused and bit her lip, hesitant about removing the rest of her clothing, but the expression of simple lust on the Doctor’s face watching her was so incredibly arousing that, heart pounding, she pulled off her leggings and underwear in one go.

She couldn’t believe she was now lying on her bed, completely naked, in front of the Doctor. 

The Doctor couldn’t believe Yaz was lying naked on the bed either. All she wanted to do was touch her, and knelt over her, a knee on each side of her hips. Yaz reached up to pull the Doctor down, but instead found her wrists being grabbed and raised above her head. The Doctor used one hand to hold both wrists there, the other to trace up Yaz’s side from her hip to knead her breast, her mouth connecting with Yaz’s neck, kissing slowly down across her collar bone to the other breast.

Yaz’s eyes closed as she felt lips close over one nipple, whilst the other was twisted between those fingers she had found so distracting just the other day. She couldn’t prevent the cry that escaped her lips, or the heat rushing between her legs, intensified by the restraint of her hands above her.

The mouth that had been lavishing attention on her right breast stopped, and Yaz opened her eyes to see the Doctor’s face smiling above hers.

“What?” 

“Nothing. You’re just so beautiful!”

Another kiss, this time long and slow and searching, and the Doctor’s hand began to trail down Yaz’s stomach. Yaz had to break the kiss to inhale a gasp as the hand dipped between her legs, and the Doctor lifted her head to watch Yaz’s face as her fingers found searing heat and wetness. Yaz’s mouth hung open, her breath coming in pants, her eyes closed as the Doctor’s fingers teased delicately and tantalisingly around where she needed it most. Her hips rose off the bed to follow them. The Doctor thought she could watch Yaz’s features in this state forever and knew that her expression of unguarded ecstasy would be an image she would carry in her heart forever. 

She finally let her fingers trail over Yaz’s clit and was rewarded with an impassioned moan that made the Doctor’s centre throb. Her fingers paused in their strokes at her entrance.

“Is this OK?”

“Please!”  
Yaz’s hips thrust towards the Doctor’s fingers involuntarily, desperate for them to be inside her and she let out a gasp when one slipped within. The glorious sensations emanating from between her legs, caused by those incredible fingers, she didn’t ever want to end but were also going to be the death of her. 

The Doctor brought her finger out then pushed it back in so gently and reverently, as if Yaz was the most delicate creature in the universe.

“More!” Yaz gasped, needing the Doctor to be firmer, her hips lifting with each inward stroke. She knew she wasn’t going to last long and urgently sought the final release. With her hands still held above her head, she was entirely at the mercy of the Doctor’s nurturing.

The Doctor gulped with desire as she added another finger and began to pump harder, the mewling noises coming from Yaz’s throat telling her she was heading in the right direction. 

Yaz’s entire universe at that moment was centred on those fingers and the feelings they were causing to surge across her body. She would be the first to admit she was hardly experienced in this area, but nothing could have prepared her for the intensity of the waves of pleasure rolling off her in this moment. The tension of the past few days finally building to its inevitable peak.

For the Doctor, the reward of making Yaz feel this way, of causing the fevered, beautiful writhing and panting on the bed underneath her was more than she could ever have imagined. To be the reason she was making those sounds, that expression of desperate arousal, was perhaps her greatest skill and gift all in one. Her thumb began to rub circles around Yaz’s clit, causing her chest to heave as her gasps became louder, her hips bucking, and the Doctor could feel her nearing climax under her fingers, unable to take her eyes off her face. 

Finally her thumb began to rub over the tender bud and her fingers curled inside as they thrust and Yaz fell apart beneath her, waves of ecstasy rolling over her from its epicentre in her core where the Doctor’s fingers were buried, still teasing out every last shiver of passion until she finally lay panting, and her eyes opened to see the Doctor’s eyes as she brought her fingers up to her mouth to suck them as she released Yaz’s hands, a sight that caused a Yaz a final shiver of pleasure.

“Oh my god Doctor, I have never felt anything like that before,” she said, when she had finally regained the power of speech. 

“I aim to please,” was the grinning response before the Doctor leaned down to capture her lips once more, kissing with such intensity they were left swollen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figure the best thing is to ask - do you want another chapter where Yaz reciprocates for the Doctor, or back to the fluff?


	12. Hair

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now everyone has run away screaming… I have wimped out on any further smut for the time being, and am back to the fluff.   
> The Doctor will get her turn, either in a later chapter of this, or an “unwritten” chapter which I will post separately!   
> Thank you for your amazing comments, particularly on that last chapter, I might have given up on everything without them!

Darkness lay heavily across Yaz and the Doctor, lying curled around each other in the bed. After the Doctor had literally made Yaz see stars, the Time Lord had fallen into a deep slumber, surprising Yaz. The younger woman, though satisfyingly exhausted, had no desire to sleep whilst the Doctor was lying entangled with her. All she wanted to do was watch her face and listen to her breaths and remember this moment for all eternity. 

The quiet voice which had been trying to make itself heard over the past few days and had apparently known precisely what had been going on, was still nagging her, though. Not about her feelings for the Doctor – this was something she could no longer deny – but about the Doctor’s apparently light-hearted rebuttal of reciprocation. Yaz had offered, but the Doctor had kissed her, snuggled into her and closed her eyes as if Yaz had somehow given her peace enough for the second sleep in as many days (Yaz was quite sure she rarely, if at all, slept when they were all on the TARDIS).

But eventually sleep claimed Yaz as well, and by the time she finally awoke, sunlight was straining through the curtains and the bed beside her was empty. Glancing at the clock, she was shocked to see it read 10.34, and she sprang up, wrapping herself in her dressing gown and heading out of the room to search for the Doctor. 

She saw her sitting at the table, hair still damp from evidently having showered, clutching a steaming cup of coffee, and her face lit up with a smile like sunshine on seeing Yaz.

“I think I’ve worked out why were had been feeling so awkward the past few days,” Yaz commented, sitting on the opposite side of the table.

“Me too,” grinned the Doctor. “S’not awkward now, though, is it?”   
“No, it’s definitely much better now!” Yaz chuckled back. 

“The serious question, though,” the Doctor began, and Yaz’s heart sank for a moment. Was the Doctor going to say it had been a mistake? Or just a one-night thing? Or that it wasn’t good?

“Who gets the points from last night?” Her face was sincere. Yaz laughed in relief.

“I think you do,” she answered, heading over to the score board to add the point. Yaz found that, as much as the Doctor deserved her point for what had happened in the night, she still wanted to beat her, and suspected the blonde felt exactly the same. She poured herself a glass of orange juice on passing the fridge and stood by the window to sip it.

“I can’t believe we haven’t set foot outside this flat in days,” she pondered, gazing at the TARDIS.

The Doctor came up behind her, wrapping her arms around her and resting her chin on Yaz’s shoulder.

“It did just get a whole lot less stressful, though,” she murmured.

Yaz put down her glass and turned around in the Doctor’s arms, slinging her own around the other woman’s neck and indulging herself in a soft and leisurely kiss. 

“I need a shower, and you can start thinking of how we’re going to pass the day today,” she announced, punctuating it with another brief kiss.

“Well I have one idea…” the Doctor began with a wink, and Yaz playfully smacked her arm.

“Get your thinking cap on!” she instructed as she headed to the bathroom. 

The Doctor enjoyed the simple pleasure of just watching Yaz until she had disappeared around the corner. She had spent the morning thus far trying fervently to silence the inner voice which was determined to laugh and point at her and say “I told you so.” She knew this would be the case, because it’s what she would have done to anyone else in her position, and she was quite deliberately avoiding having that conversation with herself.

She also knew that a third voice would likely join in with that discussion now, the tiny voice buried deep down which would tell her not to be a fool, and would remind her of Rose and River. And she REALLY didn’t want THAT argument right now. She was still trapped in this flat for the foreseeable future, and it seemed the perfect opportunity to not worry about the bigger picture, to pretend the darkness didn’t exist. She was achingly weary of everything that she carried with her, hidden so deeply within, and for just a short time she felt she was justified in just enjoying herself, just letting go, just being in the moment. 

Implications and consequences could wait until later.

She turned her mind to possible ways to occupy the day, and when Yaz came out of the bathroom with her hair wet, an idea sprang into her mind.

“Yaz, I have had an idea,” she began. “You remember how you taught me how to blow dry hair?”

Yaz would never forget, touching the Doctor’s hair for the first time, having the power to relax her so completely (she was still wondering how she could use that to her advantage). 

“Yes, I remember it very well,” Yaz replied, interested to see where this was going. 

“Well I had a go at doing it myself yesterday, but I think I still need some practise,” the Doctor explained. “What about if I had a go at drying your hair?” Her eyebrows raised in hope, rewarded by the smile that crossed Yaz’s face.

“I suppose so,” Yaz replied. “But my hair is very different to yours, I am not sure how much help it will be with doing your own hair.”

“OK, it’s nothing to do with helping me with my hair,” the Doctor instantly admitted. “I just want the chance to play with your hair, and make you feel the way it made me feel.”

“Doctor, you don’t need to repay me for anything, especially given the way you made me feel last night! If anything, I need to repay you!” Yaz answered, eyes wide.

“Forget the repaying. I just want to!” the Doctor protested with a smile, eyes sparkling.

“Fine! Fine!” Yaz agreed, laughing.

After getting everything ready, Yaz explained that as her hair was so long and naturally curly, the first thing would be to use a wide toothed comb to get any tangles out, and she sat nervously waiting, unsure what to expect from the Doctor’s efforts. 

The Doctor was also uncertain, faced with the waves of dark hair in front of her. But there was no hiding, she was being watched in the mirror, so she began pulling the comb gently through the dark hair, anxiety spiking at every tangle it encountered, teasing each one out with utmost caution. She wondered what it was like to have such long hair. Regeneration had kept hers fairly short, though obviously longer than it had been. She hadn’t really bothered to do anything with it and it was getting longer now. How long would it take to grow as long as Yaz’s? Would it suit her? It would certainly be fun to be able to tie it up in all the different ways Yaz did. She had never mentioned to her how much she admired the various different styles, how in awe she was that she could do such things. The comb caught on a snag, causing the Doctor to unexpectedly yank Yaz’s head, resulting in a yelp, shocking her out of her thoughts.

“Sorry! Sorry!” she gushed in horror. “Are you OK?”

“It’s fine,” Yaz assured her. “It comes with the territory when you have long hair!”

The Doctor was suddenly less enamoured with the idea of growing hers longer. The snarls she already got were annoying enough, particularly when she’d been somewhere windy – like on top of a crane in windy Yorkshire – and the thought of even more with longer hair was not appealing.

Yaz, however, had been honest when she said it was alright. She’d been drifting away on a cloud of bliss having someone work on her hair, and the small tug had merely surprised her out of her dreamy state. She wasn’t sure how long it had been since she’d last had someone else do her hair, and she was being reminded right now how much she enjoyed it. She wondered if the Doctor would be happy to do this more regularly, because quite frankly, she wanted to surrender to this heavenly state more often.

Once the Doctor had worked out all the knots, she hesitated, unsure what came next. Yaz reminded her of how she had used the brush and the hair dryer on her own hair, pointing out that this was one way of straightening out her curls. She also explained how abandoning the brush and using her fingers to tousle and scrunch the hair as it was dried would maintain the waviness, the idea of which enthused the Doctor greatly. After Yaz had demonstrated, the Doctor took over, feeling that this was probably even better than brushing, because she actually got to bury her hands in Yaz’s hair over and over. 

They both entered a state of sensory heaven: Yaz, eyes closed, lost in the feeling of the Doctor’s hands in her hair; the Doctor revelling in the sensations of running her hands through that remarkable hair. Although Yaz’s hair was considerably longer than her own, it was much finer, so didn’t take appreciably longer to dry. When the Doctor finally turned off the hairdryer, reluctantly forced to admit the hair was definitely, definitely dry, she gave a heartfelt sigh whilst Yaz gave a decadent stretch.

“I want to start every day like that!” Yaz mumbled softly.

“Well I can’t guarantee every day…” the Doctor mused. She stared at the final result, Yaz’s hair tumbling around her shoulders in unruly curls, the sight causing a small short-circuit in her brain. She really wanted Yaz to do this with her hair more often, though she suspected it might prove to be somewhat distracting.

“I wish I could do this with my hair,” she pondered, running her hand through her own, shorter blonde tresses, now nearly dry.

Yaz sat up. “We can do that,” she said enthusiastically. 

“How? My hair’s pretty much dry now, and it’s so much shorter than yours.” 

“Obviously it won’t be the same as mine, but I’ve seen your hair go wavy when it is damp…” she tried not to let her mind linger yet again on the image of the Doctor dripping with water after the river escapade. “I bet you can dry it to have waves in. Go and dampen it in the bathroom and we’ll try!”

The Doctor jumped up excitedly and headed into the bathroom as Yaz considered her luck – first to have the glorious experience of having the Doctor working on her hair, and now having the chance to reciprocate. The blonde returned and plonked herself down in the chair in front of the mirror, unable to disguise her eagerness. 

It didn’t take long for her to re-enter the state of delicious relaxation she’d experienced the last time Yaz had dried her hair, and this time the feelings were accentuated even more because it was Yaz’s hands working in her hair rather than a brush. It did not take long for her to almost completely zone out, just enough awareness remaining to express bemusement over the power this activity had to almost completely shut down her higher brain functions.

From what Yaz had seen of the Doctor’s hair, she was fairly sure working it with her hands this way would result in a pleasingly attractive result. And having been denied the opportunity in the night to give back what she had received, it gave her warm feelings in her stomach to at least be able to do this. She couldn’t help but wonder, given how much the Doctor clearly enjoyed having her hair played with, how she would respond if Yaz had the chance to use her hands elsewhere. Unlike the previous days when she would have squashed the resulting feelings of desire firmly and denied their meaning, she now allowed herself to indulge in them, allowing them to swirl around inside her most agreeably.

Eventually, the Doctor’s hair was dried in its new style, and the resulting messy waves haphazardly framing her face sent a further surge of desire through Yaz. How could hair have such an effect on her? Perhaps it was the contrast with the usual simple, unfussy bob she usually sported, but this less restrained version was one she approved of greatly, and wondered if she’d be able to encourage the Doctor to experiment with more frequently. 

Looking at herself in the mirror, the Doctor was thrilled with the results. 

“I love it!” she stated happily. “I had no idea my hair would do something like this! Wavy like Yaz!” Yaz smiled with pleasure, delighted with the Doctor’s response. She planted a kiss on top of the Doctor’s head, and the Doctor reached around and pulled her into her lap, returning the kiss with one on the lips. 

Yaz broke free to gasp in a breath.

“I’m not sure I can survive you, Doctor,” she moaned.

“Yasmin Khan, I will never let anything happen to you,” the Doctor replied earnestly. And in that moment she believed this was true, no matter what the voice inside her head wanted to shout at her.


	13. Burn

The Doctor had generously allowed Yaz to have a point for the hair styling, which brought them neck and neck in points once more. Yaz was slightly surprised that the competitive woman was being so generous with the points, but it turned out that the Doctor had come up with another idea for passing the time and was clearly aiming to clean up when it came to scoring.

“Today we are going to do a bacon!” she proclaimed proudly. Yaz looked at her blankly, causing her to pause, her eyes glancing briefly in either direction as if maybe someone was standing next to her that she simply hadn’t noticed.

“A bacon?” Yaz’s brow creased questioningly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Doctor, but you do know my family are Muslim, right?” She was genuinely baffled. What was the Doctor going on about?

“I don’t see what religion has to do with it.” Now it was the Doctor’s turn to be confused, her face scronching in thought.

“We don’t eat pork?” Yaz offered. She was sure the Doctor knew this, and couldn’t work out why she would be suggesting it. It was like they were playing ping pong, with the ball being complete and utter confusion, and it was now passed back to the Doctor. 

“I know…” she replied very slowly, as if she was thinking very hard (which she was, because she could see this conversation had completely gotten away from her and she had no idea where it had run off to as she looked around blankly).

“And there won’t be any in the flat?” Yaz was framing her comments as questions because right now she was questioning her own thinking – she had clearly missed some significant point in this exchange, but try as she might, she could not put her finger on what on earth it could be. 

“I… know….?” The Doctor replied even more slowly now, convinced that the discussion had legged it about five miles down the road and left her standing in metaphorical underwear, wondering how she could possibly have lost the plot so entirely and so quickly. 

Yaz’s eyebrows were so high they were threatening to join her hairline. Her brain was frantically sifting through the meagre contents of the conversation thus far, trying desperately to pinpoint the missing link that would make it all make sense yet failing miserably. 

“I don’t know what to say,” she floundered, her brain essentially throwing its hands in the air and giving up even trying any more. 

“Why would we need pork?” The Doctor’s brain, however, was not willing to give up the fight just yet.

Yaz’s mouth hung open for a moment before she could even answer. “For the bacon?” 

“But it’s cakes, not meat…”

There was a pregnant pause and something clicked in Yaz’s brain and went dingdingding!

“Do you mean… a BAKE OFF???” 

“Oh yeah, I thought it was called Bake On…”

It struck Yaz, as she found herself in stitches once more, that she didn’t think she’d ever laughed so much in her life as she had these past few days. The Doctor, meanwhile, looked on in mild amusement and that realisation yet again, just when she thought she’d got the hang of humans, they did something like this. If nothing else, it was an absolute joy to watch Yaz in this incapacitated state of hilarity. With a final deep breath, wiping her eyes, Yaz drew herself up again and realised the Doctor was watching her, hands in pockets, with that alien expression of not quite understanding. She went up to her, slipped her arms through the Doctor’s and leaned in to kiss her. She was never, ever going to get bored of kissing the Doctor, and from the response she got, the Doctor felt the same about her. 

“You’re a dork and I love it!” Yaz commented through a smile.

“It takes one to know one,” the Doctor quipped back.

“So we’re going to have a Bake OFF,” Yaz clarified. “I didn’t realise you watched that.”

“Oh yes, never miss it. Except when I’m in the middle of some intergalactic calamity. Or stuck inside someone’s liver,” she added as an afterthought, then shrugged her shoulders and started rooting through cupboards.

Yaz’s eyes opened wide. “In someone’s…? Oh never mind.” She watched the Doctor place a container of plain flour on the counter and continue her examination of the cupboard contents. 

“Let’s just say I’ve seen most episodes,” the Doctor explained, adding eggs and milk from the fridge to the things laid out. “Some of them. I’ve seen a few. OK I’ve seen one. Look, I’ve heard Graham talk about it a lot.” Yaz let out a snicker.

“What is our technical bake going to be, then?” Yaz drew back, poised as if to prepare herself for a running race. She was absolutely going to win this, there was no way she would let the Doctor move ahead of her again on the score board

“Pancake art!” was the declaration. Yaz stifled a laugh. The Doctor was going down! There was no way, given the state of her face painting skills, she would be able to make anything remotely impressive on a pancake to win this. 

The Doctor whizzed up a batch of pancake batter whilst Yaz dug out a piping bag her dad had once used when on a cake baking kick. The blonde nattered away, explaining that the first batter that went into the pan would end up being the darkest colour, with the shades gradually lightening the less time spent cooking, and then started on a detailed description of the chemical changes that were taking place to cause this. Yaz listened to the chatter without understanding the more technical aspects, just enjoying the sound of the Doctor’s voice, loving the way she got excited about things other people would consider inconsequential. Nothing was insignificant to the Doctor.

It wasn’t long before the batter was ready, and Yaz had been nominated to go first. She loaded up the piping bag and stood ready, waiting for the pan to heat up on the hob. She had always enjoyed Art at school, as evidenced by her impressive face painting designs the other day. She reckoned she would win this easily and set about creating an elaborate pattern of layered swirls in the pan. Once she had finished, she turned the pancake out onto a plate. 

“I think that’s a winner, even if I do say so myself,” she bragged, hoping to wind the Doctor up and provoke her into making mistakes. The older woman couldn’t help but be impressed by the result, as well as feeling more than a little intimidated, though she would never admit it. She was also remembering her own efforts with the face painting, and the bravado she had felt when announcing the activity was deserting her. However, she was nothing if not determined, so she loaded up the piping bag and stood ready to begin at the hob. 

Her first effort in the pan to make a delicate pattern ended up in the bin when a large glut of the batter splurged out at once and made a massive blob. Yaz thought it was too funny to mind her having a second chance, and watched the look of intense concentration on her face with amusement. Her brow furrowed as she leaned over the hot pan to squeeze in tiny amounts of batter at a time and Yaz decided it was time to have some fun. She stepped closer to the Doctor and leaned over her shoulder, ostensibly to look more closely at what she was doing, but in the act breathing softly over the Doctor’s neck. The Doctor faltered and cleared her throat slightly. 

“Are you OK?” Yaz asked innocently. The Doctor nodded, huffing a strand of hair out of her face, trying to focus once again on the pan.

Yaz continued to peer over her shoulder, this time getting close enough that her hair fell against the Doctor’s cheek and the Doctor actually jolted, squirting a rogue line of batter across the entire pan.

“Erm, would you mind backing off a bit, Yaz?” she muttered.

“I’m just trying to watch what you are doing,” Yaz pouted, but acquiesced and moved back slightly. The Doctor resumed her work, and Yaz placed a warm hand on the Doctor’s lower back, feeling a slight shiver when she did so. To her credit, she kept on going with her pancake, but Yaz slowly and deliberately began to trail her fingers lightly and slowly up her back.

The Doctor was in the middle of attempting something complex with her pancake, plus she was pretty sure the first parts were starting to go rather black – she had committed with the batter and had to continue despite Yaz’s blatant attempt to distract her, which she had to admit was working far too successfully. As the fingers trailed up to the back of her neck, her hands shook as she squeezed the batter into the pan, resulting in a very wobbly line. She stopped piping and turned around to look at Yaz reproachfully.

“You dirty cheat!”

Yaz put on an expression of mock outrage at the accusation and then let out a cry as the Doctor caught her unawares by piped a blob of batter onto her cheek. 

“I can’t believe you did that!” she exclaimed, giggling and wiping it off. She regarded it on her fingers for a moment before lunging back at the Doctor in an attempt to put it on her face. The Doctor stepped back, putting a hand behind her to prevent herself from stumbling, but inadvertently catching her hand on the edge of the hot pan. She let out an involuntary squeak of pain, snatching her hand away. Yaz instantly stepped back, horrified that the Doctor was hurt and it was because of her.

“I’m so sorry!” she cried, reaching for the Doctor’s hand. “Are you OK? Is it bad?” The Doctor tried to hide her hand and make out that it was fine, but Yaz was not so easily deterred and grabbed the Doctor nonetheless. There was a definite red burn mark on the edge of her little finger, small, but Yaz knew when it came to burns that even small ones really hurt. 

She pulled the Doctor by her hand over to the sink to run it under the cold tap, holding it in place even when she tried to pull away.

“It’s fine, Yaz, I burn myself all the time when I am working on the TARDIS,” But the young woman was feeling horribly guilty that this was her fault – her actions had led to the Doctor hurting herself, and she was not going to forgive herself for that easily. 

“It’s not fine,” she responded. “This wouldn’t have happened if I wasn’t so careless.” She was staring resolutely at the hand under the running water as she spoke, unwilling to give herself the pleasure of looking at the Doctor’s face. 

Since she couldn’t manage to retrieve her hand from Yaz’s ministrations, the Doctor leaned against the edge of the sink and looked up into Yaz’s eyes. 

“Yaz, look at me,” she instructed. She was ignored, so she used her other hand under Yaz’s chin to tilt her head up and look her in the eyes. “Honestly, it’s fine. I was the one who put batter on you in the first place, don’t forget, and I really do burn myself all the time.”

Yaz nodded quietly and the Doctor pressed a gentle kiss onto her lips. “But let me put a dressing on it to make sure it is protected,” Yaz stated, prompting the Doctor to nod in return. 

They sat side by side at the table, Yaz having pulled out the family first aid kit and was meticulously cutting a small dressing to the right size to cover the burn. The Doctor was slouching, grumbling quietly about not needing this much fussing, and how quickly Time Lords heal, but the complaints were good-natured and she could see that the action of dressing her minor injury was helping to assuage Yaz’s guilt. When she had placed the final piece of tape over the dressing to hold it in place, Yaz placed a kiss on the palm of the Doctor’s hand and looked apologetically up into her face. 

“You’re sure it’s alright?” she pressed, concern still in her eyes. 

“It will be gone by morning,” the Doctor reassured her. 

And then they smelled the odour of burning pancake and leapt up at the same time to pull the pan off the hob and drop it into the sink.

The Doctor gazed sadly at the blackened remains of her pancake, congealing slowly in the plug hole. 

“I suppose this means you win,” she sighed.

“You betcha!” was the delighted response.


	14. Showstopper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may not manage to get a chapter up every day from now on. I will try my best.

Yaz was riding high on her pancake victory and it gave her an inflated sense of confidence in her chances of winning the next Bake Off round, which the Doctor had decreed to be the Showstopper. In a fit of desperation to win, she had decided they would have to produce something using just 5 ingredients with no actual cooking allowed (though she begrudgingly permitted melting). She left Yaz standing in slight panic as she’d rushed off to a corner of the living room with some paper and a pencil to begin planning, and was at that very moment kneeling with her back to Yaz, crouched down low and scribbling furiously all over the paper.

Yaz had sat herself at the table with her own piece of paper, but it remained as worryingly blank as her mind at that moment. The more she glanced at the Doctor beavering away in the corner, the less her mind seemed capable of offering any even remotely useful suggestions. Every so often, the Doctor would mutter to herself and then scribble something out, or grab another piece of paper and start to fill it with scrawly text, and this just served to heighten Yaz’s stress even further. By the time the Doctor had screwed up 4 pieces of paper and filled a further 3 with spidery squiggles and complex-looking diagrams, Yaz resorted to searching the fridge, freezer and cupboards to endeavour to spark her brain into action. A few minutes of staring at packets, boxes, jars and all-manner of random food items and she began to formulate an idea, returning to her paper to start plotting. 

“How much longer do you need, Doctor?” Yaz called over to the figure still hunched over her bits of paper, and drawing an emphatic line under her own designs. The Doctor responded by chucking another ball of scrunched paper over her shoulder and making some dramatic flourishes on one final leaf, before jumping to her feet and brandishing the pages that had survived the scrumpling frenzy. 

“I am looking right now at the person who is going to come second!” She announced, pointing her fingers like guns at Yaz, and scurried over to the kitchen to begin preparation. Yaz gathered up her single piece of paper and followed her with considerably less enthusiasm and a fair amount of dread. 

It proved to be somewhat difficult to work alongside the Doctor, whose style in this activity was essentially reminiscent of a whirlwind, and Yaz found herself edged further and further along the counter top as the Doctor covered every available inch with what appeared to be every single utensil Yaz’s family owned, plus an alarming number of bowls. Yaz busied herself gathering her meagre resources and began melting, mixing and combining her choices, until ready to place the results in the fridge to set.  
She purposely tried to avoid noticing what the Doctor was using or doing – perhaps she was a glutton for punishment, but she was genuinely intrigued to find out what on earth she was concocting. She had to admit that the Time Lord did have a knack for being able to combine some unlikely things remarkably successfully, and began to suspect she herself might not be winning the next point on the scoreboard. 

As the Doctor continued to fly around the kitchen in a flurry of activity, Yaz parked herself on the sofa, sending out texts to Ryan and Sonya. It wasn’t long before her eyelids began to droop, no doubt as a result of the late night exertions that had taken place, and within moments she had fallen asleep.

She awoke to a very strange sensation all over, an odd sort of pressure on her skin, and instantly worried that maybe this was a symptom of the virus and she was getting sick. Then she opened an eye and peered down at herself. 

“Doctor,” she said to the other woman who was sitting cross legged on the floor next to the sofa and watching her with glee. “Why am I covered in pebbles?”

The Doctor clapped her hands in delight. “I found them in all those plant pots over there,” she pointed vaguely in the direction of the rest of the flat. “And I wondered how many I could balance on you before you woke up!” Yaz stared at her.

“Turns out it is one hundred and fourteen,” she added with pride. Yaz sat up, scattering the pebbles and running a hand across her face. “Also, you look beautiful asleep,” the Doctor added, causing Yaz to wonder how she could go from being so completely random to utterly adorable in the blink of an eye. She managed to persuade the Doctor not to count the pebbles again as they picked them all up and piled them onto the coffee table, and then the Doctor took her hand in excitement and pulled her over to the kitchen. “Can we show our creations now?” she pleaded.

“Let me put the finishing touches on mine, and we’re good to go,” Yaz said, pulling her work out of the fridge, noting the large covered bowl on the middle shelf that was evidently the result of the Doctor’s efforts.

Pulling a packet out of a high cupboard and adding the crowning elements to what she had made, she placed them in the centre of the table with a somewhat apologetic “Tadaa!”. The Doctor crouched down in order to look closely, her nose inches away, her mouth open as she gazed in wonder.

“Yaz, these are amazing!” she said with honesty, making Yaz chuckle slightly. 

“They’re really not, they’re Easter nests!” she replied. “Melt a Mars bar and some marshmallows, mix with Rice Crispies, form into nest shapes and finish with chocolate eggs. It’s a good job Sonya is a chocoholic so I could raid her secret stash.” Yaz rubbed her arm and gave a small smile. “We always used to make them when I were little, it’s all I could think of.”

“AND you only used four ingredients? Well they’ve blown my socks off,” the Doctor stated, and Yaz was charmed by the fact that the Doctor seemed to be absolutely genuine in her praise, no hint of sarcasm at all. She knew her creations were hardly ground-breaking, but being around the Doctor could be awfully good for your self-esteem sometimes. The blonde took a bite from one of the nests and her eyes widened in what appeared to be sincere pleasure. “You are making these every week when we’re back on the TARDIS,” she instructed. “They’re almost as good as custard creams!”

“So come on then, I can’t wait any longer. What have you made?” Yaz may have found the Doctor’s response to her childish creations endearing, but curiosity was overcoming her. The Doctor pulled the large bowl out of the fridge and uncovered it, giving her most dorky grin. 

Yaz gasped as a stunning trifle was revealed – layers visible through the sides of the glass bowl, topped with clouds of whipped cream.

“I would have added those awesome rainbow sprinkles,” she glanced longingly at a pot sitting next to the coffee machine. “But that would have been one ingredient too many,” she sighed. Yaz took pity. How could she deny the Doctor? 

“Oh go on, you can have sprinkles for free!” she said with a nudge of her shoulder, which made the Doctor jump up in excitement, grab the pot and add a liberal covering of them over the top of the dish. 

“Perfect!” she smiled with satisfaction.

Something was nagging at Yaz as the Doctor filled a small bowl for each of them whilst chattering away about how she made it. “So there’s cake in the bottom (it was quite the challenge to cut it into shapes that tessellated exactly), covered with slices of banana (you can never go wrong with a banana, I must tell you about the time I swapped someone’s gun for a banana), and then I found a pot of jelly in the fridge (did you know how hard it is to slice jelly? Well I do now), custard goes on top of that (fishfingers would have been the obvious addition if we’d been able to cook things as well), and then whipped cream on top. The perfect combination!” She presented Yaz with a bowl and spoon and they both loaded their spoons up ready to taste.

“I have to say, it looks fantastic Doctor. This definitely seems like the winning dish.” There was that little voice tugging at the back of Yaz’s brain again. What was it trying to say?

“Well I don’t like to blow my own trumpet,” the Doctor said humbly - despite a fair amount of evidence to the contrary, Yaz thought with amusement. They took a bite at the same time, watching each other’s faces in anticipation. 

It was approximately half a second after putting the spoonful of trifle in her mouth that Yaz realised what that niggle in her head had been trying to tell her: they didn’t have any whipped cream… Her eyes widened in sudden horror and she spat the trifle indelicately back into the bowl.

“Doctor! What is this??” she tried to scrape the taste off her tongue with her spoon. The Doctor was attempting to chew the food in her mouth, trying to look like she was enjoying it and failing.

“It’s… not… that… bad…” she said through her mouthful with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. Yaz was now at the sink urgently trying to rinse her mouth out. And it was then that she spotted it sitting behind the washing up liquid – her dad’s can of shaving foam.

“Oh Doctor, you didn’t…” she held it up in front of the Doctor, who was struggling to swallow. “You used shaving foam on your trifle?” 

“I thought it was whipped cream!” came the defensive reply.

“In the bathroom?”

“It did strike me as an odd place to keep whipped cream,” 

“Yes! Because it’s not whipped cream!”

“It looks like it,” the Doctor pondered thoughtfully, clearly believing this to be ample justification for her mistake.

“And you look like someone with common sense, but appearances can be deceptive,” Yaz downed a glass of orange juice and finally eliminated the taste of the shaving foam from her mouth. 

“Well I do have a major injury, you know,” the Doctor offered by way of an explanation, waving her burnt hand in Yaz’s face. “The trauma has clearly affected me.”

“Really?” Yaz tried to look unimpressed, but the Doctor was doing her best to win her around. 

“Yes, it’s very painful, I think I need some TLC.” She edged closer to Yaz and moved in as if to kiss her, but Yaz put her hands up to stop her. 

“Oh no! You’re not kissing me when you taste of shaving foam!” The Doctor stuck her tongue out and tried to peer down at it. “It’s quite nice,” she offered. “Sort of bubbly.”

“Go and brush your teeth and I might consider it,” Yaz laughed, and set about cleaning up the mess as the Doctor trudged off to the bathroom. 

Yaz discovered that if she scraped the shaving foam and some sacrificial custard off the trifle, it became quite edible, which was how she and the Doctor found themselves tucked up on the sofa that afternoon with the bowl between them and some bad old film playing on the TV. 

“It really would be better with fish fingers as well,” the Doctor opined.

“You can think again, because we don’t have any fish fingers,” Yaz stated baldly, unwilling to accept this was some hitherto unknown culinary match made in heaven. The Doctor may well have been able to make some strange ingredients work well together, but fish with custard was a step too far. The other woman pouted in disappointment. “Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it,” she said. 

“Don’t tell me you’ve eaten it,” Yaz said before seeing the look on the Doctor’s face. “You have! You have tried it!”

“Of course I have! Amy and Rory thought it was pretty tasty, too.” Her gaze drifted absently out of the window, Yaz noticed. She so rarely said anything of substance about her past life. Oh, plenty of anecdotes about meeting all manner of famous people and dubious-sounding achievements, but so little personal information was ever divulged.

“Were they friends of yours? Amy and Rory?” she asked tentatively.

The Doctor continued to gaze out of the window, her expression becoming wistful, perhaps even melancholic. “They were,” she said so quietly Yaz might not even have realised she had spoken, had she not been looking at her to see her lips move. 

“Where are they now?” 

“Gone.” 

“By choice? Or…”

“Definitely ‘or’.”

Yaz paused for a moment before pressing on. “Are there may people like that in your past?”

The Doctor just continued to stare out of the window, but Yaz could tell that she was seeing other times, other places and other people behind her eyes.

“Will that be us, one day? Me and Ryan and Graham? Just more people you’ll never talk about?”

“You’ll never be ‘just’ anything, and nor are any of my friends that are gone.” The Doctor caught Yaz in a steely glare that took her by surprise.

“But you never talk about them. Surely if they were so important to you, you’d at least mention them occasionally?” she challenged, unaware how dangerous this comment was.

“It’s because they were so important to me that I don’t mention them, Yaz,” the Doctor returned softly. 

“Isn’t it good to talk? Isn’t it better than bottling everything up?”

“Have you told me everything about yourself?” The Doctor threw back at her, and Yaz pursed her lips. It was true, there were things she had never disclosed to the Doctor, because to do so would have been too painful, too raw. She felt chastened, dropping her gaze to look at the Doctor’s hands, which she took in her own.

“No. I haven’t.” she admitted without meeting the Doctor’s eyes. 

“And you have just one lifetime. I have had so many lives.” She turned Yaz’s hands over in her own, as if examining them for the first time, and traced the lines with her fingers. 

“I just want to understand you,” Yaz whispered. “And to help.”

The Doctor looked into the young woman’s eyes then, and held her face tenderly in her hands.

“Yaz, you help just by being here, by being you. I don’t need anything more than that.” 

The kiss they shared in that moment tasted of sadness.

Yaz could feel the Doctor had closed something off, her eyes still distant even when she smiled. Yaz had pushed too hard, asked too much. When the Doctor excused herself to use the bathroom, Yaz put her hand on the spot where she had been sitting, feeling the warmth gradually dissipate, worried that, like the heat drifting away from her hand, the Doctor was drifting away from her.


	15. Under the stars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here it is folks, the final chapter. Apologies for the delay, it turned out to be the hardest one to write (apparently I don’t like endings).
> 
> I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has read, left kudos and left amazing comments. I was not expecting people to actually read this, I was writing to get it out of my head and to keep myself busy during the lockdown. The responses have been amazing and I cannot thank you all enough – big virtual hugs to you all!
> 
> Hugest thanks of all go to the laminator fam because they are basically just awesome and this fic wouldn’t have been completed without them <3
> 
> The Doctor finally gets her turn here, but many apologies to those who wanted more like chapter 11, I just can’t do it – I hope I haven’t let you down (I still might try and write something separate). It is much more “soft-focus” here. If you want to miss that bit out anyway, stop when you get to the first line and rejoin us at the second line.

When the Doctor had finally returned from the bathroom – Yaz noting there had not been any tell tale sounds of it actually being used – she looked drawn. She sat next to Yaz on the sofa to continue watching the bad old film, but she seemed to tuck in on herself – feet under her, arms wrapped around herself, she even covered herself with a blanket. 

Yaz was thrown into an internal panic, assuming that she had completely blown everything, that she had been foolish to think what had happened might have meant the same thing to the Doctor as it had to her. She was a mere human, how could she ever have thought she might have any kind of relationship with an alien? And how could she even ever compare to the people she had loved and lost before? She was sure they must have been remarkable people, great people, people of note and intelligence, wit and wisdom. Who was she? Yasmin Khan, bullied at school for being different, still living with her parents, married to her job as Sonya loved to say. What made her worthy of being noticed by someone as incredible as the Doctor? Surely she had only been allowed to hang around because she came as part of a group with Graham and Ryan: grandfatherly Graham, cancer survivor, and brave Ryan, overcoming the odds of losing both parent and grandparent AND having dyspraxia. And Yaz. Boring old Yaz. 

She drew in a breath which was shakier than she wanted and stood to stretch slightly. Even though the sun was still setting and it was hardly late, she informed the Doctor she was tired and going to bed early. She’d see her in the morning. 

If she’d looked at the Doctor’s face when she spoke, she’d have seen the alarm in the other woman’s eyes, brows furrowing, deepening the line between them. But Yaz did not look at these things, in fact she didn’t spare another glance at the Doctor, instead hurriedly leaving to prepare for bed, trying not to think of what had happened there the night before, and pulling her duvet over her head to try and block the world out. By some miracle, sleep found her and she fell into oblivion.

In the void, someone was whispering her name. She clung to the darkness, unwilling to relinquish it. But the whispering was insistent. It was coming from near her face, and then something touched her arm, held it, gently moved it, and the world swam back into focus around her despite her reluctance to allow it. She kept her eyes stubbornly closed, and moaned to Sonya to go away, before her memories fell into place and she realised it definitely wasn’t Sonya. 

Opening her eyes revealed the Doctor crouched next to the bed in a pair of Yaz’s navy pyjamas, blonde hair not sleep tousled, suggesting she’d not actually been to bed yet. Even in her drowsy state, she could see that they were buttoned up incorrectly, each button in the hole above the one it should have been in, a single one left without a hole at the top. A glimpse at the clock revealed the time to be 12.32, the moon shining brightly through the open curtains which she had not even bothered to close. The world was silent outside, the new abnormal normal. Yaz squinted at the Doctor.

“What is happening?” she croaked, her voice still full of sleep. 

The Doctor’s eyes twinkled and a smile, broad and genuine, filled her face, confusing Yaz even more, given how she had withdrawn earlier in the evening. She stood, grabbed Yaz’s hands and yanked her vigorously to her feet, prompting an unwilling groan.

“I’ve got a surprise,” she said in a hushed voice. “But you have to be really quiet!” and she led the way out of the room. When they got to the front door and the Doctor began to open it as quietly as she could, Yaz pulled back. 

“Doctor, we can’t go out there!” she said in alarm.

“It’s OK,” was the response. “No one else is up, and no one will know if we don’t make a sound!” She had fire in her eyes and the smile was infectious. Taking Yaz’s hand again, the Doctor slipped out of the door and they padded along the external corridor, both in bare feet. 

Yaz felt a rush of adrenaline at being out of the flat for the first time in days when they weren’t allowed. She kept glancing around as if expecting to see the police at every door, but of course there was no one. She followed the Doctor to a service door, which she had somehow managed to open, revealing a dark staircase leading upwards. Yaz knew what this was, having been sworn to never go up there by her parents when they had first moved into the flat. It led to the roof, but the Doctor was now leading her up, and she felt powerless to do anything other than follow in silence.

At the top of the stairs was another door, already propped ajar, and when she stepped through, she saw a pile of blankets laid out under the dark sky. The Doctor sat down and patted the space beside her without saying a word, Yaz following the instruction at a loss for any other response.

“Lie down,” the Doctor whispered, “And look up at the stars!” Yaz did as she was told, the Doctor lying next to her, holding her hand, fingers interlinked. She began to point out different stars visible in the sky, describing worlds that were distant and fantastical.

“You’ve been everywhere,” Yaz whispered.

“Not everywhere. Not even close to everywhere,” the Doctor replied with a hint of sadness.

“But you’ve been to so many places. Why do you keep coming back to earth? When there is so much out there?” Yaz couldn’t imagine what would draw the Doctor to return time after time.

“Because of all the planets in the universe, of all the species I have ever encountered, earth and humans are the most amazing,” the Doctor said simply, turning on her side to look at Yaz.

“But what about the wars, the hatred, the ignorance?” Yaz continued, seeking understanding in the Doctor’s eyes.

“Sadly those thing happen everywhere. Humans are no different to any other species in that respect. But nowhere else will you find a people so determined to find beauty, to explore it and explain it and describe it, and who work so hard to make it a better place for others.” The Doctor spoke with genuine feeling and admiration. Her capacity to see the good in everyone was something Yaz aspired to. 

“I wish I could be more like you,” she sighed. 

The Doctor looked away, looked up to the stars, trying to escape the adoration she knew she didn’t deserve.

“You really don’t, Yaz. If you knew even a fraction of the things about me…”

“Then tell me. Tell me something. Because I see someone who gives everyone the chance to change, who never gives up on anyone.” 

The Doctor pressed her lips together, her eyes searching the starlit sky as if they hid words that might even begin to explain to the young human next to her. She was so resigned to the grief and loss that she carried with her every second of every day and trying to even begin to put it into words seemed impossible. 

“I have travelled with so many people. Good people who were changed by their time with me, and not always for the better. Maybe never for the better.” Her mind filled with images of those long lost friends. “They saw me do things I am not proud of. Some hated me when they left. Some didn’t want to leave. But I left them scattered throughout the universe. In the future and the past, in different dimensions, or even without any memory of their time with me because I had to steal it from them. Some of them didn’t survive. My wife…” and here she paused, just for a moment, but long enough for Yaz to clock the tiny catch in her voice and the swallow. “My wife died the first time I met her. Others have lost their lives because of me. I have so much blood on my hands. I am not perfect, I don’t always make the right decisions. I’m just me. I do the best that I can, and too often, my best is not enough. Sometimes it’s even wrong.”

“But you try,” Yaz insisted. 

The Doctor gave a quiet laugh. “It’s not enough. It’s never enough.” 

Yaz paused and looked down at their hands joined together.

“I thought you didn’t want me. I thought I wasn’t enough for you compared to all those other people.” 

“Yaz, you are good and honest and kind and passionate. You mean as much to me as every other person who has ever been my friend, who has travelled with me. You are more than equal to every one of them.”

“Did you talk to them? Did you open up to them?”

A beat passed. 

“No. Not really. Not often. Not like this.”

“You are afraid of letting people in, letting people get close. You’re afraid of letting go. Is that why you wouldn’t let me do anything last night?”

The Doctor kept her eyes focused on the distant stars and gave the tiniest nod. Yaz saw the single tear escape and she kissed it away.

__________________________________________________

“You don’t need to be afraid of me,” she breathed, her lips against the Doctor’s neck causing the Time Lord to close her eyes in a failed attempt to suppress a shiver. She let her hand wander across the Doctor’s stomach. “You don’t have to keep yourself hidden from me.”

Her hand slipped under the waistband of the Doctor’s trousers, trying not to lose her nerve, ignoring the tremor in her fingers.

The Doctor could not hold back the gasp caused by Yaz’s hand straying ever lower, beneath her underwear. She wanted to stop her. She wanted to grab her hand, push her away, and run. 

But she also wanted the release so much, and she wanted Yaz. 

Cool fingers found intense heat and every muscle in the Doctor’s body tensed, her eyes flying open in panic. 

Yaz both saw and felt the reaction and leaned over to capture the Doctor’s lips with her own, stilling her hand, allowing the Doctor to adjust. When they broke apart for breath, the Doctor said in a small voice “I am afraid. It’s so different in this body.” 

“It’s OK to be afraid. I am afraid, too.” And her fingers moved once more, finding a gentle rhythm in their strokes. “Close your eyes.”

The Doctor didn’t like being told what to do, but it was just what she needed right now, and then the fingers found the place she needed the most and she couldn’t hold in the moan, panting as Yaz’s fingers built up their pace.

Yaz could still feel resistance in the Doctor’s responses, and hoped her own nervousness wasn’t contributing. She was scared to intrude any more, fearing both her own ability and the Doctor’s reaction. Besides, what she was doing right now appeared to be more than enough. She watched the Doctor’s eyes screw shut, felt her body begin to shudder, heard her gulping in breaths, clearly trying to remain quiet.

“Let me hear your voice,” the Doctor panted, wanting to focus on something other than the voices within her head, wanting Yaz to keep her in the moment.

“It’s OK. Let go. You can let go for me.”

When the Doctor came undone, the most exquisite pleasure flooding her body, Yaz thought she had never seen anything more beautiful in her life.  
She kissed each freckle on the Doctor’s cheek and they fell asleep in each others’ arms under the stars.

__________________________________________________

They were woken by the warmth of the early morning sun and Yaz felt a stab of fear that they would be discovered. She pulled the Doctor, still half-asleep, to her feet and gathered up blankets to pile into her arms. They looked quite the state between them, mussed hair, dishevelled pyjamas (the Doctor’s still mis-buttoned), cheeks rosy. 

The Doctor clicked the roof door shut behind them as Yaz crept down the stairs and peered through the gap in the doorway below. She couldn’t see anyone there, so beckoned frantically for the Doctor to follow her and they ran on quiet feet back to Yaz’s door. 

They were not expecting what they found there.

“Hello cockles!”

“Graham!” Yaz squeaked, skidding to a halt, the Doctor crashing into her back. “Ryan!” she added, registering the young man who looked about as shocked as she felt. “What are you doing here?” she abruptly attempted to smooth her hair and straighten her pyjamas, though she realised the actions were futile, and her face felt like it was on fire.

Graham was giving her an alarmingly knowing look, whilst Ryan looked more like he wanted to be anywhere than right there at that moment. The Doctor, in her usual state of social obliviousness, blundered right in.

“Fam! It’s amazing to see you! Yaz and I spent the night together on the roof and it was awesome!” Yaz covered her face and dashed into the flat, only vaguely aware that the others were following her. They ended up in the kitchen area, leaning on the counters or, in Graham’s case, sitting at the table. 

“Haven’t you heard the news?” he asked.

“I think they might have been busy,” Ryan sniggered, resulting in a glare from Graham. Yaz closed her eyes in embarrassment whilst the Doctor gave her usual look of bafflement. 

The blonde launched into an unnecessary clarification. “We have been busy, but if you look at the score board you’ll see that Yaz is beating me, and I think after last night she needs another point…”

“Doctor!” Yaz exclaimed in horror, stopping the Doctor in her tracks. “I think Graham was about to explain something?” she looked pleadingly at Graham, who took pity on her. 

“It was announced on the local news,” he explained. “They are expecting the government to announce a lock down across the entire country later today, so they’ve lifted the quarantine here in preparation for the nationwide one later. Thought we’d take the opportunity to grab yous two and get to the TARDIS while we can?”

It was agreed all round that this was an excellent idea, and whilst Graham and Ryan occupied themselves eating the last of the Easter nests and watching Netflix on the coffee machine, the Doctor and Yaz disappeared off to get ready.

Yaz had mixed feelings as she rushed to wash and dress. A text from Sonya confirmed that she and her parents were already en route back home to the flat, and Yaz had responded by telling them that she loved them, but had been called urgently in to stay at work for some time to assist with the upcoming situation. When her mother had found out and texted back in fear that her daughter was being put in potential danger, Yaz assured her she would not be out and about, but most likely working safely behind the scenes. 

It would be such a tremendous relief to be able to not only get out of the flat, but be able to leave the entire situation all together in the TARDIS, but leaving her family and her whole planet caught up in an inescapable crisis broke her heart. On a more selfish level, she found she was reluctant to go back to sharing the Doctor with anyone else. She knew it had been incredibly challenging for the Time Lord to remain in such a confined space for so long, and it would have been wrong of her to wish to prolong the circumstances. But equally, there was no going back from the position they now found themselves in. What this would mean for them from this point on, Yaz didn’t know, and it worried her. 

There was a quiet knock on the door, and when it opened, the Doctor stepped through, now dressed normally, though with another of Yaz’s t-shirts on under her coat. 

“You’re probably wondering where we go now.” She had her hands buried deep in her trouser pockets, but somehow seemed taller, standing there with the universe at her feet. “And I really don’t know, but we’ll find the way together, right?” Yaz nodded, and the Doctor took her face in her hands and kissed her, slow and lingering. Yaz threw her arms around the other woman and pulled her as close as she could, wanting to feel every inch of themselves pressed together. When the Doctor left her to finish getting ready, she smiled over her shoulder.

Once Yaz had tied her hair in a hurried ponytail, she headed to the front door, ready to leave with her friends. She noticed the Doctor loitering by the score board. She fussed with her keys as she went past it, following the others to the door, noticing the Doctor had drawn a huge gold star on her side.

“Doc, I am impressed you managed to survive this long in one flat,” Graham was saying as Yaz locked the door behind them.

“Oh it was great,” the Doctor was chuntering back. “We cooked and sang and played games and had sex. It was amazing!”

Yaz could hear the falter in Graham’s steps and the choked cough that came from Ryan, closing her eyes and shaking her head with embarrassment. She wasn’t at all sure how things were going to be from now on, but assuming she could survive the humiliation, it was going to be fun finding out.


End file.
